


But The Pages Are All Torn and Frayed

by blindlyseeking



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Schmoop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:38:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindlyseeking/pseuds/blindlyseeking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically, this is based off of the music video for “I’m Not Okay” and it also includes (but is not limited to) gratuitous mentions of a drunken fascination with a lamp, one evil lacrosse team, two breakdowns in a bathroom, grandmothers with green hair, a couple bruises, and a whole lot of revenge. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	But The Pages Are All Torn and Frayed

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to whoever’s fucking reading this, you’re awesome. I fucked mercilessly with the time frame and their ages. Sorry about that.

Chapter 1: In Which You Meet Gerard

            “Mr. Way, is there a reason why you are not in your proper swimming attire like the rest of the class?” God, Gerard hated Sister Margret. He shifted awkwardly, fully clothed, on his two feet and mumbled something inaudible.

            “Excuse me, what was that, young man?” she asked sternly. Gerard looked up at her ugly, wrinkled face. Sister Margret’s beady eyes were staring at him with obvious disdain, like he was a cockroach or something equally repulsive. _Fuck it,_ he thought and, still avoiding the sneering faces of his classmates, said, “I can’t swim, Sister.” Nick McDouchebag and his crew of perfect Christian boys by day, messengers of Satan by night jeered and snickered at him in their ball hugging black speedos. Gerard just crossed his arms and pretended not to notice their assholery.

            “Then we’ll count today as a zero won’t we, Mr. Way?” Sister Margret snipped. Gerard was suddenly intensely fascinated with the blue tile lining the pool and determined not to look at her. “And I want to see your hair cut next time I see you.” He ran his hands protectively through his long black locks. When was the last time he washed them again?

           “But, Sister Margret– “ he began only to be cut short.

            “You will have your hair cut by tomorrow or I will cut it for you,” she clipped menacingly before striding off. He glared indignantly at her the whole time she walked away, but Sister Margret didn’t turn back to him.

             Before coming to Sacred Heart, Gerard hadn’t believed in the existence of evil. Then he had met the Sisters. The eleven sadistic nuns that taught at Sacred Heart had formed some sort of pact to make his life as miserable as they could without use of dark magic. He was sure of it. As if he didn’t already get enough of that from King Nick the Magnificent and his friends. Gerard wondered what he could have possibly done to deserve this.

            For the rest of the period, while the rest of the class diligently swam laps like their life fucking depended on it or something, Gerard stood defiantly on one of the diving blocks, hands on his hips, staring straight ahead determinedly. In his head, he tuned out the occasional unimaginative insult from the assholes in his class and Sister Margret’s obnoxious whistle, which was really not good for his hangover at all. Instead, he made up the next part of the comic that he was writing for his brother. It was entitled Mikey Way: Unicorn Ninja. It was his favorite he had written to date.

            As soon as he heard the bell ring from the big school building, Gerard scurried away as fast as possible so he wouldn’t have to deal with the jerks in his class. Instead he bolted right to classroom 201 where he found Mikey leaning against the wall outside casually. He took one look at Gerard and shook his head sympathetically. “Those dickheads,” he said. Mikey then slung an arm around Gerard shoulders as he was (embarrassingly) taller than Gerard now, but it felt good so Gerard wrapped his arm around Mikey’s too skinny middle and asked, “So how’s the fight against evil coming, little brother?”

            “Not too well. You?”

            “Sometimes I think their powers are too strong for me,” Gerard said and they left it at that. Sometimes, Gerard wondered where Mikey went off to in his head. When he sat quietly and simply sank into himself, Gerard wondered if he was happier inside there than he would ever be around other people. There were moments, rare and fleeting ones but there were moments when, if Mikey trusted you enough, he’d let you inside his secret world in his head and let you feel what he feels, know what he knows. Gerard knew because it had happened to him, a couple of times, sometimes when they were just lying silently together on the dusty carpet of the basement, calves slightly nudging each other’s. He didn’t know if Mikey had ever let anyone else in ever. He could feel himself worrying for his little brother all the time. Please, he’d pray, let him be happy. Let him know it’s all right to let others inside. But who was Gerard to say anything about letting other people in?

            When they got to the outdoor eating area (fucking school couldn’t pay for a cafeteria?) they realized all the tables were taken. Mikey rolled his eyes and steered them towards the long set of stone steps where Ray was picking carefully through a brown paper bag. When they sat down, he looked up and a wide smile spread over his face.

            “Hi you guys! You’re still coming to my house after school, right? I just got this awesome new video game.” Mikey and Gerard let Ray rattle on about his new video game and its amazing graphics because neither of them really had anything to say at the moment. Gerard could never understand how Ray was so goddamn _happy_  all the time. He suspected it had something to do with the giant hair.

            Lunch passed uneventfully, mostly just Mikey and Ray talking about this girl who kept coming into the record store Ray worked at to buy Iron Maiden, and Gerard hoped that the rest of the day would pass in the same way.

             He skated under the radar in Biology, sitting in his favorite seat at the very back of the room where he started some rough sketches on the comic. In English, Gerard stared out the window at the day, which actually was rather nice. It was the one class besides Art, which he (thankfully) didn’t have with any of the jerks that pushed him around. It really wasn’t that big of a school, so it was more likely you ended up in the same class as someone you hated than not. It was another reason why he really wished he were in the same grade as Mikey. Gerard was actually in a pretty good mood (for him anyways) up until Pre-Calculus when Sister Elizabeth dropped a pop quiz that he hadn’t been prepared for at all. And, to make matters worse, every single time he looked up, Ted did a beautiful imitation of someone drowning. By the time he walked out of class, he was positive that he failed miserably. The last class of the day, Religious Studies, was the longest fucking class of the whole day. He was  _positive_  that Sister Ruth tortured war hostages in her spare time by boring them to point of insanity. He imagined himself tied to a chair in some anonymous warehouse and thrashing around in an attempt to escape while she rattled on about Psalms. If the class wasn’t so devastatingly shitty, he would have found the image funny.

            “Come on, kid,” Ray said comfortingly, ruffling Gerard’s hair lightly. He remembered what Sister Margret had said about cutting it that night and groaned before burying his face in Ray’s shoulder miserably. “I’ll buy you coffee on the way home,” Ray offered, which actually did make Gerard feel a little better. Despite the suckery in his life, he was glad that he had Ray to buy him coffee and play video games with and Mikey to drink vodka and listen to punk with in his basement bedroom.

            “Also, Gee,” Ray said, standing right in front of him, a serious expression on his face. “When was the last time you washed your hair?”

***

Chapter 2: In Which You Meet Frank

             Frank looked up at the ominous black gates guarding the tan castle-like school. He couldn’t think of a place he wouldn’t rather be. Well, maybe a pit full or spiders. Or spending a whole day with the crazy cat lady next door. Goddamn cats. The place looked more like a prison to him than a school. Frank sighed, bent his head down low, and slung his bag noisily over his shoulder. He had been less than enthusiastic when he was told that his new school would have a uniform, so he was itching to represent himself in any way he could, even if that meant putting hundreds of buttons all over his book bag. 

             With a sigh he pushed through the crowd of giggling and chattering students, only earning a couple of second glances. He missed having someone to talk to in the hallways. He felt so alone, the most alone he’d ever felt in his life and he was smack in the middle of a crowd of people. He wanted to have Bob by his side making stupid jokes about the ridiculous amount of boat shoes Catholic school students wore. School hadn’t been a bundle of joy before the transfer, but at least he had had a couple of good friends who stood by him and who had bedrooms where he could play guitar without being yelled at by his parents to do his schoolwork or to read his bible. Now it was like he was at home all the time. Super.

             Frank looked down at his first class. History. Okay, it really wasn’t the worst subject ever. He could handle it.

             He entered the classroom and looked around skeptically. It looked like a pretty normal classroom except for the crucifix on the wall by the door and the nun. She actually looked like a sweet little old lady to Frank.

             As it turns out though, his optimism was prematurely delivered because in the classroom, unlike the hallways, people noticed him. Frank heard them whisper all sorts of things to each other; they weren’t exactly discreet about it.

            “Send the kid back to seventh grade!”

            “Like this place needs any  _more_  freaks running around.”

            “Is that a  _rainbow_  pin on his bag?”

             Frank shoved his hands deep in his pockets and stared intensely at the wastebasket next to the teacher’s desk so the class wouldn’t see that he was embarrassed. Then, if that wasn’t torture enough, the nun made him  _introduce himself_. Frank stared at her with wide eyes before mumbling his name quickly and slouching over to the only available seat, thankfully at the back of the classroom. From there, he downgraded the nun from ‘nice little old lady’ to ‘dark lord of the Sith.’ And no, Frank was  _not_  being a tad melodramatic.

            “Psst, hey loser! Nice shoelaces,” came a derisive voice next to him. Frank looked up to see a well-built blonde guy wearing one of those pretentious sweaters from Lacoste laughing at his pink-and-black-checkered shoelaces. They were his favorite pair, and he had worn them today for good luck. Frank glared into his notebook where he began taking carefully accurate notes. This seemed to peeve the jocks who then decided to issue a full-fledged attack of “kick the new kid’s desk” for the rest of the period. He inwardly groaned at how he was going to explain his messy notes to his father. Even on the way out, one of the guys that had thrown spitballs at Frank “accidentally” bumped into him, sending his notes flying. Frank saw him fist bump one of the other asshats in the hallway.

             He exhaled violently and bent down to pick up his stuff, when suddenly another pair of hands reached down and helped gathered his stuff together. Shyly, Frank studied the long fingers with Sharpie inked over the nails up and over the itchy blue cotton of the uniform sweater to find himself looking into the long, bespectacled face of a boy with hair so straight Frank was sure it couldn’t be natural. He seemed to be made up of angles and edges he still hadn’t quite grown into yet. His expression was something Frank could only define as neutral, but his eyes seemed relaxed in a sort of friendly way. Frank found himself not immediately hating the guy, which was a shock.

            “Mikey,” the boy said. He didn’t offer his hand or anything, just stood up and gave Frank his notes back in a neat and orderly pile.

            “Hey, I’m Frank,” he replied. They suspiciously observed each other for a second longer, Frank noticing the way Mikey wore his wire glasses at the end of his nose and his knees that turned in on a slight angle.

            “Is that a Black Flag pin?” Mikey asked. Well, Frank guessed he asked anyways. Mikey’s vocal inflection was disturbingly similar in his question as it would have been if it were a statement. He glanced down to his book bag where Mikey was pointing to one of the larger pins with four solid black rectangles on it.

            “Yeah! Black Flag is awesome!” Frank gushed happily. He couldn’t believe his luck. Here was someone who knew about a generally famous punk band. He had to be like the messiah or something. Mikey nodded along while Frank talked animatedly about his Black Flag songs in the hallway.

            “And ’Black Coffee’ is so wild!” Frank maintained.

             His eyes widened. “What about ‘The Crazy Girl’?” Mikey asked seriously, taking a look at Frank through the sides of his glasses.

            “What  _about_ ‘The Crazy Girl?” Frank asked intently, waiting for this new boy to emit a witty and insightful comment on the song.

            “It has pretty cool bass line,” Mikey shrugged. Wow. He noticed the bass line of songs. Frank was literally in awe.

            And in such a way, it went on. Frank’s spirits were lifted by the arrival of someone who wasn’t a complete dipshit that he almost didn’t notice the increased amount of people staring at him. Almost.

             The next thing on the schedule Frank had received at the front office from middle-aged redhead said that they had Morning Mass right now. As they filed into the school’s mini chapel, Mikey pointed out all the guys to watch out for. There was an overwhelming amount, but Mikey promised that the only really bad ones were the dreaded lacrosse team and its captain Nick Vanderlin. Nick was a senior and therefore a year older than them and a hell of a lot tougher. He was surrounded by four of his deluded minions at the time, two of whom Frank recognized as the guys that hassled him all throughout class. “Those two are Robert Handler and Vince Bettle. Why, do you know them?” Mikey asked.

             Frank, however, was saved from recounting the events of the morning when the priest walked in and gave them a look so cold, Frank was sure it could ice over Hell. The whole room fell dead silent as he began his sermon. It sounded more to Frank like biased rambling about what God thought than an actual sermon, so he tuned the priest out and gazed out of the windows, wanting nothing more than to scream at the top of his lungs.

***

             Frank thought he deserved an award for managing to get through the rest of the morning before lunch.  _The Most Bullshit Ever Endured Whilst Wearing Khakis Award_  or some other equivalent of that. Yes, Frank would look into having Bob make him a commemorative plaque.

             After Mass was Geometry, which Frank did not have with Mikey. Though the teacher did not make Frank introduce himself this time, quite a few more people noticed his arrival. News traveled like fucking wildfire in Catholic schools or something. As he walked past, he heard a plain girl with flat brown hair whisper to her friend behind her, “I heard he got kicked out of his last school for  _stealing a car._ ” Her friend stared at him judgmentally before whispering back something Frank couldn’t hear. Stealing? He couldn’t  _wait_ to hear all the other unimaginative reasons for his transfer people had come up with. The only fear he had in that was if someone actually knew the real reason.

             Geometry was going fine until Sister Mary pulled him up to the front of the class and made him solve an equation on the board.  _Awesome,_  he thought. He scribbled out the answer quickly before making a beeline back to his seat. “Nice one,  _smart boy_ ,” he heard another girl taunt as he tripped over someone foot sticking out in the middle of the row of desks. “Whoops,  _my bad,_ ” came Vince’s voice to his right. Frank just shoved his hands deep into his pockets and muttered, “Whatever,” before sitting back down. After that class, Robert pushed him menacingly up against a locker and gave him some long fucking speech on respect or whatever before shoving him down so hard on the white linoleum floors that he saw little floating red spots. Frank would like to know where all the nuns were supposed to be while he was out here getting harassed by someone whose IQ was lower than his dog’s.

             The worst, though, came when he got lost trying to find his way to the cafeteria. A couple wrong turns, and Frank had no fucking clue where he was. He leaned up against a wall of lockers and moaned to himself. His bag was heavy, almost everyone except one guy was being a total ass to him, his uniform shirt was really fucking uncomfortable, and he missed his old friends. Frank banged the back of his head against the locker out of frustration and dropped his book bag. And, of course, because the day was going oh so  _very_  well for him, Nick and his followers decided to drop by at that very moment.

            “Hey, gay boy.” Frank’s blood ran cold for a second. He looked up very slowly at the group of guys. There were only four of them, but they all looked much tougher than he was and ten times as intimidating. “So, is it really true that you got sent here after your dad walked in on you sucking dick?” he asked.

             That did it for Frank. “Shut up, you motherf–“ he started, advancing on Nick, but before he knew what was happening, one of the demon followers had him slammed against the wall, his arm twisted painfully behind him. “Let me go!” he shouted. Frank squirmed against the hands restraining him, but the others were much stronger than he was.

            “You’re pretty short. I bet you don’t even have to get on your knees to suck cock,” he said and his posse laughed stupidly.

            “Fuck you,” snarled Frank, who had gotten as much in his face as he could while being held back by two lacrosse players and being under 5 feet 5 inches. Nick’s face drained of color in a satisfying way though. What was not so satisfying was the punch in the gut he got after that. The shove to the ground after that was even less satisfying than that. And the repeated kicks to the stomach, well those were just unnecessary.

            “So long, faggot,” Nick spat before sprinting off with his followers before anyone saw. Unbelievable. Frank heaved himself up painfully as soon as the round the corner and dusts himself off. Great. Now that he’s been on the floor he’s probably got a million germs crawling all over him and then he was going to get sick because he had the world’s shittiest immune system and it will be miserable and all that motherfucker’s fault. Frank decided that he didn’t want an award for his great triumphs in not exploding, just a giant bottle of Aspirin.

             The bell rang just then and Frank remembered that he was still motherfucking lost. He half limped, half ran across the building trying desperately to find the locker rooms for P.E., and even then, he had to change as quickly as possible and hobble across the field to where the class was. The only good thing Frank seemed to notice about the situation was that that Mikey kid was in his class.

            “Mr. Iero, it would do you well to arrive at class on  _time_ ,” Sister Margret scolded, “considering it is your first day, I’d have thought you would like to make a good impression.” Frank really did not have enough energy to argue, so he did his best to look ashamed, which seemed to satisfy Sister Margret enough to leave him alone.

             P.E. wasn’t as bad as it could have been with Mikey by his side, except for the part where Mikey’s asthma kicked in and he had to sit down with his inhaler for a good five minutes. Back in the locker rooms after class, Mikey gave Frank instructions on how to get to his last three classes

             Frank proudly arrived a couple minutes early for English, so he got to pick where he sat. He secretly observed everyone as they walked in. It was all very normal, people talking about their superficial lives until  _he_ walked in. At first, Frank only saw him out of the corner of his eye, but he turned his head up to get a better look at the boy who had just walked in.

             He looked like he hadn’t taken a shower in days. He had hair so long it fell almost below his shoulders, tangled and very black. At the end, his nose turned ever so slightly upward, which drew a lot of attention to his eyes. There were dark circles under his eyes, which were an unsettling mess of colors like clouds before a storm. His uniform shirt wasn’t tucked into his pants and ran through it like it had spent a day too long on his bedroom floor. Basically, the boy looked like total crap. And Frank was immediately fascinated by him.

             The way he skirted into the room made him seem as unobtrusive as possible. The boy sat down a row in front of Frank, right in a good line of view so he could stare at him without being too much of a creeper. Which he was being right now. Very, very creepy. He was amazed that the boy hadn’t seen him star– oh shit, he looked right at Frank. Frank turned his head down quickly and tried to bore holes into the desk with his eyes. For the rest of the class, he didn’t look at the boy once more.

             Spanish was dull, considering his parents had made him take a summer school course, which had already covered what they were learning. Frank will admit, his thoughts turned towards the secretive boy from English once or twice, but his prospects for making more than one friend on his first day seemed painfully low. Maybe he was mistaken, though, because he saw the boy again in his last class of the day, Religious Studies. Was it just Frank, or did he seem a bit different than when he had seen him earlier? The boy’s shoulders seemed to hunch forward a bit more and he kept on tugging at his hair. In fact, he didn’t seem to be paying attention at all, just waiting for class to end. When the final bell rang and the rest of the class rushed out like motherfucking monsters were chasing them, the boy didn’t seem to realize the rest of the world was there at all, just pushed his stuff in his book bag and trudged out. Frank made the mental note to ask Mikey about the interesting boy the next day, but he was perfectly aware that he couldn’t remember anything for his life.

***

            “Frankie, is that you?” Linda Iero’s voice wafted into the doorway from the kitchen.

            “Yes, Mom, it’s me,” Frank called back. She came bustling out quickly, wearing an apron that, like everything else that came within a 3-foot radius of his mother, was spotless. She gave him a quick hug, and then turned to him, face meaning business. He self-consciously straightened up.

            “Was your first day alright? None of your classes were too hard?”

            “It was great!” Frank lied, adopting a bright smile. “I’ve got History, Geometry, Spanish, and English homework,” he rattled off.

            “That’s good. Bring your homework downstairs for me to check when you’re done, okay?”

            “Fine,” he said, hoisting his bag back up and headed for the stairs.

            “And don’t forget to walk Tula!” she called after him as he rushed up the stairs to change out of his uniform. He pulled on a red t-shirt and jeans. Frank wished he could dress like Bob did, with cool leather jackets and black skinny jeans, but he didn’t even have to ask to know that that would never fly with his parents.

             The evening went by dully. Most of it was consumed by the homework he had to finish before his mom gave him back his phone privileges. Finally, he got the landline to himself for a whole fifteen minutes before his father was home from work. Frank dialed Bob’s number in as quickly as his fingers would go.

            “Hey, fuckface,” crackled Bob’s voice.

            “Bob! What if it was one of my parents that had called?”

            “But it wasn’t. So, how was the first day at the monastery?” he asked.

            “It’s not a fucking monastery, it’s a Catholic school.”

            “Same difference. So how was it?”

            “Shit.” And then Frank spilled his guts to Bob because that’s just how Frank does things. He moaned about the evil lacrosse team jocks and the uncomfortable uniform and the evil nun that made him introduce himself. Tula hobbled into his room halfway through the rant, grunting and wheezing along. She always made him smile. Frank hoisted her pudgy little body onto his bed and affectionately scratched her belly. “Oh, there was this one guy, Mikey, who seemed pretty cool though. He said he liked my Black Flag pin on my bag.”

            “Are Catholics even allowed to listen to Black Flag?” Bob asked. Frank heard a snort in the background and a voice declare victory over Bob.

            “Ahem, with Stryper as my evidence, Catholics can find a way around anything. Is Pete there?” Frank asked.

            “Yeah, that’s him. He’s totally kicking my ass at Contra. Damn!”

             The door banged shut. “Ugh, my father’s home.”

            “Things will get better!” shouted Pete’s voice before Frank quickly shut off the phone, grabbed one of his several bibles (why he needs more than one is a mystery to Frank), and pretended to read.

            “Hello, Frank,” his father’s deep voice rumbled from the doorway.

            “Hello, Father,” Frank replied, carefully setting down his book next to himself. Tula’s dog tags clanked as she leapt off the bed and out the door.

            “Did you finish all of your schoolwork?”

            “Yes. Mom already checked it.”

            “Hand it over here.”

            “But Mom already looked it over.”

            “You can’t revise your schoolwork too much. Have you read your bible yet tonight, Frank?”

            “I just started to…”

            “Do it.”

            “Yes, Father.”

             Frank’s father surveyed the room discriminately. Frank was intensely glad that he had cleaned it that afternoon. If his father was pleased, he must have kept it to himself because his deep-set frown didn’t even twitch. His hawk eyes finally landed on Frank’s book bag. Frank gulped.

            “What did I tell you about those pins, Frank?” he fumed. Well, to be honest, Frank’s dad never actually fumed, he was far too composed all the time. But Frank knew him well enough to see that he was upset.

            “Look at this!” he teemed, waving the bag around so the pins clanked obnoxiously. “The Misfits? This is the devil’s music!”

             Frank hung his head. “Yes, Father.”

             His father got dangerously quiet then. “Frank, what is this rainbow pin doing on your bag?” No matter how much Frank wanted to answer, his throat had closed up and his words themselves seemed paralyzed by fear. “I don’t want to see anything like this  _ever again_ , do you understand me?” Frank’s father was right up in his face as he said that, and Frank could swear his father’s eyes were stabbing him.

            “Yes,” he mumbled very quietly.

            “You are not to use this bag in the future,” Frank’s father warned, snatching up his homework on the way out.

            “Yes, Father.” 

***

 Chapter 3: In Which They Meet 

            Frank had been at school for almost two weeks now. Though Frank ate every lunch by himself in an effort to avoid large crowds of students, he found that his friendship with Mikey had progressed significantly from the first day. He found that, despite having only one facial expression, Mikey was hilarious and knew quite a bit about horror movies and comics, a sea of culture he himself had only dipped his feet into at Bob’s house. Mikey had explained all of his favorites with great elaboration to Frank during P.E. and in the hallways, using lots of awkward hand gestures when he didn’t have the right words.

            Very little changed with the interesting boy. Frank found that he liked to doodle during class, that is when he actually bothered to show up. Because Frank was  _not_  a creep who peered over the boy’s shoulder sometimes, he had  _not_  seen the boy’s doodles and did  _not_  think that they were rather good because he’d _never_  seen them. But, if he  _had_  seen the sketches by  _accident_  or if the boy were to eventually _show_ him the drawings, well, Frank wouldn’t mind telling him that he was one of the most talented people he had ever seen. And he might even let slip how he thinks it’s cute when the boy gets really into his drawing and scrunches up his face in concentration. Which he would know only if he had been watching the boy. Which he  _hadn’t_.

            Frank had finally learned the boy’s name one day when Sister Ruth asked him to stay after class. Frank bent down and pretended to be tying his shoe.

            “Mr. Way, do you realize that this is a  _mandatory_  class?” Sister Ruth asked. A bit of mumbling was all she got as a response.

            “Gerard, most of the other Sisters here have already given up on you, but I will do no such thing. You will be in attendance in this class every day for the duration of the semester, or I’ll be forced to give you a zero. Do you understand me?”

            There was only silence from the boy. Frank peeked over the top of his desk to see him tugging at his hair again and looking longingly at the door.

            “Mr. Way, I asked if you understood.”

            “Yes, I get it,” he almost whispered. The boy then made a bolt for the door.

            “And Gerard?” Sister Ruth added, right as he reached the hallway.

            “Yes, Sister?”

            “Have a nice weekend.”

            “… thank you, Sister Ruth.” And then the boy, Gerard, was gone.

            Gerard.

***

            Things on the home front had been uncomfortably calm. He didn’t know what he had been waiting for, but considering everything leading up to Frank’s transfer to Sacred Heart, he would have expected more surveillance from his family. But things continued almost as they always had, if only Frank could pretend he didn’t notice the change in his parents’ faces from before this had all happened. The looks in their faces that made him feel mutated, wrong… different. Frank could still sometimes hear his mother in her bedroom, praying for God to lead him through this “crisis.” It killed him.

            Bob had promised to take him out somewhere special on Friday. He hadn’t told him what or where, but Bob sounded rather pleased with himself so Frank could only assume it was going to be against his parents’ rules. It had been the one thought pulling him completely through the week.

            Bob was Frank’s coolest friend. Seriously, he was a total Jedi. A solid six inches taller than Frank was and built like a bull, Bob never let anyone push him around. He and Frank had been an odd pairing when they met in their first year of high school during the terrors of Freshmen Friday when they got locked in the girl’s locker room together. He had two ear piercings and a lip ring. Of course, he never wore them in front of Frank’s conservative parents. How they managed to trick his parents into approving of Bob, Frank would probably never fully understand, but he was glad it worked because Bob was pretty much the only thing holding him to the face of the Earth. At school, sometimes he found himself missing Bob’s stupid sense of humor and pride in his “beard” (a tiny bit of fuzz around his chin he had managed to grow) so much that it hurt. But Frank found a way to get through. He always does. 

***

             _Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go_ , Gerard sang in his head. He was tapping his fingers on his desk idly and gazing aimlessly around the classroom. Most kids were taking notes attentively, with the exception of a few kids like Nick who seemed to be telling some intensely fascinating story that involved quite a few sexual hand gestures. Gerard rolled his eyes.  _I wanna be sedated._ And then there was the kid. All wide eyes and short black hair and he was staring  _right at him._  As soon as the kid noticed him, he grew even paler than he already was and stuck his nose into his notes. Gerard looked at him a bit more, and saw the kid peek out of the corner of his eye at him. They held each other’s gazes for one awkward moment before Gerard shyly let his hair fall in between them as a barrier. He tried not to look that way for the rest of the class.

            When school finally ended, Ray jumped at Gerard out of nowhere and caught him a very Ray-esque headlock. “New  _Doom Patrol’s_  out today, motherfucker!” he cheered.

            “Finally!” Mikey added. “That cliff hanger…”

            “Evil!” Ray bubbled. Gerard walked in step with the two of them, debating the finer points of the plot line. They even laughed along when he went on a tangent about the use of shape and detail in the drawings.

            Comic Connection was tucked in between a liquor store and a dollar store in a strip mall at the end of town. In fact, it was cornered in so completely that most people didn’t even notice the tiny shop with the swinging sign coated in chipping yellow paint when they walked by. But Comic Connection had been the second home to Gerard and Mikey since they were five years old. Its walls were lined with ceiling to floor shelves packed tight with any comic or manga you could think of, even the crazy obscure as shit ones that hardcore collectors framed and hung in their hallways. Gerard loved everything about the closet-sized store, from the action figures in the window to the wilting Watchmen poster signed by Alan Moore. It was here that Mikey worked and therefore a main hangout spot for the threesome. The 20% off employee discount was also pretty cool.

            While Ray and Mikey rabidly ingested the latest from Doom Patrol, Gerard browsed the DC section in complete seriousness, searching out an older issue of Batman. He was so absorbed by the severe task at hand that he hadn’t looked up to see who had entered when the bell on the door tinkled under the Simon & Garfunkel playing in the background.

            “—parents are going to flip out if they find me here,” a low teenage boy’s voice was saying.

            “Which is why they won’t,” another slightly higher voice replied flippantly. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t been dying to read the new X-Men either, Frank. You were practically drooling over the last one I showed to you.”

            “I wasn’t  _drooling_ , asshole, I was simply admiring the quality of the comic.”

            “Whatever you say.” There was a dull ‘wump’ sound and cries of, “Ow! Get off me, motherfucker!” in between boyish giggles. Gerard barely took notice of the exchange at all until he accidentally bumped into a tall boy his age with sleek strawberry blonde hair, a solid black lip ring, and a cigarette dangling limply from his lower lip.

             Draped over the blonde boy’s shoulders was a marginally shorter and skinnier boy with feathery black hair, just barely curling at the ends. It had an interesting effect on his face, highlighting all the nice angles by his jaw line and cheekbones, leaving him stuck somewhere between a childish vulnerability and an adolescent handsome. His eye color was especially odd, a crazy hazel toned combination of colors, at one angle chestnut, at another silvery grey, and at yet another a vibrant green. The boy grabbed the cigarette out of the other’s mouth and inhaled deeply. Gerard felt a mixed sense of déjà vu and an urge to draw the boy and all his nice angles. He then embarrassingly realized then that those eyes were the same he had stared into during English class.

             If the boy recognized him, he certainly didn’t let it show. Instead, he looked past Gerard and asked, “Mikey?”

            “Hi, Frank,” Mikey greeted him warmly. It was warm for Mikey anyways: with a tone of acknowledgement and the shadow of a smile.  

             Gerard was confused. Who was the kid and how did he know Mikey? Gerard observed them from a ways back while they chatted about school, Mikey falling right into step with the other blonde boy.

            “This is my friend, Ray. He’s a senior.” Ray nodded. “And  _this,_ ” Mikey began as he quickly dragged Gerard over to their corner of the shop, “is my older brother, Gerard. Gerard, this is Frank. And that’s Bob.”

             Gerard shyly tucked a lock of his cheaply cut hair behind his ear and looked up into the boy’s  chameleon eyes. “Hi. You’re pretty!” the boy, Frank, exclaimed. His whole face lit up like it was Christmas fucking Day as he jumped off of the blonde’s back. “Can I keep you?” Gerard’s stomach dropped into his feet. This Frank guy was pretty strange. “We have the same English class, don’t we?” Frank asked.

            “Yeah, I… I remember you. You’re not, I mean, you’re not a senior, are you?”

            “Nope, I’m a good ol’ fashioned junior. At my old school, I’d already taken an advanced English class, but they didn’t have any of those at Sacred Heart so they just moved me up a grade,” he explained. Afterwards, he quirked his lips a bit like there was a bad taste in his mouth.

            “Cool,” Gerard said, at lack of any other words in his brain.

            “So you doodle a lot,” Frank blurted out.

            “Umm, yeah, I guess I do.” Gerard scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, just like, uhh you know, idle notes and stuff,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

            “Gerard’s great,” Mikey interjected in a tone that suggested he’d done this before. “He’s writes some of the coolest shit ever. Tell them about the one you wrote before, the one sort of like Green Lantern.” And just like that, Mikey had Gerard going off about his art and comics. Frank actually seemed genuinely interested in what Gerard had to say, which was a first from pretty much anyone besides Mikey, Ray, and Elena. And, slowly, Gerard began to learn things about Frank’s life too. Unlike Gerard, he wasn’t one to just go shooting off his life’s story to random strangers. Instead, he seemed to talk about himself in the form of specific memories he had, filling in the background information as he went along.

             Frank was pretty cagey about his home life. From what Gerard understood, he was breaking a shit ton of rules by going out that night. Despite that, Frank wasn’t shy. He was literally bursting with energy, but not in the sunshine and Iron Maiden way Ray was. It was the way Frank talked with his whole body and bounced on the balls of his feet that just made Gerard realize just how  _much_  there was of him.

             Finally, around closing time for the store, Frank and Bob had to leave.

            “Fuck, I wasn’t even supposed to be  _out_  here, we’ve been here for 2 hours. It was really cool to meet all of you guys.” Frank inched in a little closer and bumped his wrist against Gerard’s, making him hold his breath as he could feel Frank’s words on his neck. “Maybe I’ll get to see some of your art later?” he asked hopefully. Gerard managed a nod. “Bye Mikey, bye Ray, bye Gerard,” he called out as they left. Bob gave a friendly wave before exiting too.

            “Wow! They were so cool, Mikey! Weren’t they awesome, Gerard?” Ray said.

            “Yeah,” Gerard said, eyes still fixed to where Frank had vanished. “They were nice.” He let out the smallest of sighs, one that Ray managed to miss while straightening his stack of books. Mikey, on the other hand, caught it and raised an eyebrow and him to which Gerard formed a facial expression to telepathically communicate his, “What?” to Mikey. All Mikey did was move his head a little to left to say, “I didn’t mean anything. Nothing at all.” The older brother rolled his eyes.

***

             After a good long phone call and a lot of leg pulling, Frank managed to get the “okay” to stay the night at Bob’s house. This was ideal for two reasons. The first was that there was no way he was cutting his good day short like that. The second reason was that he reeked of cigarettes, and he didn’t really feel like doing the work of mask the stench.

             Frank loved being in Bob’s room. He had a cheap blue couch at one end of the room and a solid collection of CDs and video games at the other. Frank picked through the collection with discerning taste, looking for just the right music. Finally he pulled out  _In God We Trust Inc._ by a band he had never heard of called The Dead Kennedys. Frank popped the disc into Bob’s impressive sound system and let the dirty punk music wash soothingly over him. He flopped over onto Bob’s bed and sighed contentedly. Bob was going on about how he was going to see some band called The Bouncing Souls play the city on Sunday. They were going to be huge, Bob was sure of it.

             Finally, Frank brought up the topic that had been on his mind since they got back from the comic book store. “So those guys we met at the comic store,” he started, making sure he wasn’t being too specific, “they seemed pretty cool, right?”

            “Yeah. Ray and I are gonna hang out next week.”

            “Mhm. So… what’d you think of Gerard?” Frank asked nervously.

            “I don’t know, what did  _you_  think of Gerard?” Bob shot back, confused by Frank’s question.

            “I thought he seemed pretty interesting. Isn’t it nice that he’s got such a good relationship with his grandma? And he is so modest about his art, I’ve seen it sometimes during class, he’s awesome! He doesn’t always come to class though, he actually skips a lot, but that sort of makes him mysterious, right? More interesting and stuff. Didn’t you think he was awesome?” Frank gushed. Bob watched Frank suspiciously.

            “Really? Gerard?” he asked Frank.

            “What?”

            “Come on, Frank. Don’t be an ass. The last time you had that look on your face you got transferred to fucking Catholic school.”

            “I don’t have a  _look_ ,” Frank said indignantly. “And what do you mean, ‘Really, Gerard?”

            “I don’t fucking know.”

            “You do  _too_  know, Bob!’”

            “He just doesn’t really seem like your type. And aren’t things, like, just starting to get, like,  _normal_  again?”

            “It’s not like that, Bob,” Frank said.

            “Fuck it, Frank, you know this is literally the worst possible time for you to start chasing after some senior.”

            “I’m not chasing after some senior.”

             Bob gave him the ‘don’t give me that bullshit, loser’ look.

            “ _Chasing_  is a strong word…”

            “I’m just saying, Frank, you’ve seen it bad, but like, what if that’s not the worst of it?” Frank was quiet for a minute, remembering how it was at the beginning. He  _never_  wanted to go through anything like that again.

            “Well, it won’t matter either way because he’s probably straight anyways,” Frank moped.

            “Aw, I didn’t mean to make you all depressed, dude. Just don’t be any more of an idiot than you already are,” Bob ingeniously advised. He put an arm around Frank’s little shoulders and squeezed affectionately. They sat like that for a moment before Bob turned back to Frank with a smile and said, “You know what would cheer you up?”

            “What?”

            “Wanna see if my brother will let you play his Les Paul?”

***

            “So, when are you gonna finally ask me about Frank?” Mikey asked.

            “What?” Gerard said, looking up from his session of hardcore wall staring. “I’m not thinking about Frank.” He was.

            “You’ve been being zoning out all night.”

            “I have not.” He had been.

            “So then you don’t want to hear all about him?”

            “No, tell me everything!”

             Mikey shook his head and laughed at Gerard with his eyes then launched into it. “He’s sixteen but his birthday’s on Halloween.”

            “Halloween? That’s the best fucking birthday ever!”

            “That’s what I said. He’s lived here in Belleville his whole life, but this is his first year at Sacred Heart. He’s really fucking touchy about why he got transferred, so don’t talk to him about it.”

            “Why, what happened?”

            “No one knows. He’s a Jesus boy, but he really doesn’t want to be at Sacred Heart. As far as I can tell, his dad forced him into it.” Gerard’s interest was sparked. He couldn’t help it. He was a total sucker for a good mystery. “So what are you gonna do about it?” Mikey asked.

            “About what?”

            “Your crush on Frank,” Mikey answer matter of factly.

            “It’s not really a  _crush_ –“

            “It’s a crush, Gerard.” Sometimes, Gerard hated how Mikey was right about him all of the time.

            “I mean, it’s not really a crush, more of just a friendly liking type thing,” Gerard spluttered.

            “Gee, what do his eyebrows look like?”

            “Well, they’re really pretty, they kind of arch up just outside of center and they make his eyes look really wide and excited even when he’s not smiling,” Gerard supplied easily.

            “It’s a motherfucking crush.”

            “Point taken.”

            “Then ask him out,” Mikey advised.

            “But what if he says no? What if he doesn’t like me at all? What if he thinks I’m some fucking lame fat ass with no taste at all?  _What if he’s straight?_  He’s too young anyways. Oh my  _God_ , I’m such a pedophile!”

            “Gerard.” Mikey grabbed Gerard’s chin with one hand and forced him to look straight into his goddamn magical all-knowing Mikey eyes. “He is  _one year_ younger than you. That does not make you a pedophile. You are not a lame fat ass without any taste. Pull it together, man.” Gerard nodded twice obediently.

            “Damn, he’s cute. Did you notice the way he sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he’s thinking really hard about something? And how he fucking flails around when he’s trying to prove a point?” He was giggling like a stupid fan girl at a concert for her favorite band. Gerard wanted to inwardly curse Frank for making act so stupidly, but every time he thought about Frank’s cartoon character smile, he couldn’t help grinning like a total dork too. This was so  _humiliating_. At least the only one who could see it right now was Mikey. “He’d never go for me,” Gerard asserts again. He wasn’t just being self-conscious either. He was a total slob and moped 83% of the time. No boy in his right mind would want to date him, and honestly, dating seemed to be a pretty bad idea for him anyways. Gerard has empirical evidence of that fact.

             Gerard got up and off of Mikey’s bed and walked towards the door.

            “Where’re you going?” Mikey asked.

            “I’m going to the basement to wallow in my teen angst and paint my feelings. Give me my Harry Houdini book back when you’re done with it.”

            “Sure thing, fuckface,” Mikey said, lying back down on his Star Trek bed sheets.  

***

Chapter 4: In Which Confessions Are Made and Jocks Are Dickfaces  

            Mikey shifted his eyes discreetly up to the clock by the window next to a laminated piece of paper obnoxiously proclaiming said window  _le fen_ _être!_ Sunlight fell into the room and gave the classroom a magical golden halo. Bits of dust floated through the air. Tina who was neither popular nor uncool chewed on her fingernail intently. Evan, who was secretly in love with her, pined after her from a distance. Mikey tapped his feet ever so slightly against the carpets, which need to be vacuumed badly.  _Hang in there for five more minutes,_  he told himself. As he saw Sister Gertrude turn to write the directions on the board, Mikey seized his opportunity. After weeks of practice, he could do it without even getting the jolts in his knees he got when he was anxious. Silently, he hefted his black bag over his shoulder and slipped sneakily out of the door he left open just a crack at the back of the room. His feet barely made any noise as he slipped as quickly as he could through the hallways, stopping only once to check his hair in a trophy case down the hallway. Perfect. Any shred of danger the situation posed was completely overshadowed by the prospect of where he was going. Things were better there. Things were better with her.

***

            Frank should have seen it coming. He really should have. There he was, walking out of Religious Studies and on his way home, listening to Bob’s iPod when suddenly he was surrounded by Nick and The Boys like they were some sort of demonic boy band. They had lacrosse sticks slung over their shoulders menacingly and sneers on their faces.

            “Thought we forgot about you, fag?” Frank cringed at the word, especially when it was shot at him from a snide redhead he didn’t even  _know._

            Frank wondered if things would have gone differently if he didn’t have such a big fat mouth. If he hadn’t said anything then maybe he wouldn’t have gotten them so mad and ultimately he might not have been beaten into a pulp. But, despite being a pacifist, Frank could never resist a good challenge.

            “And which one are you?”

            “I’m Logan Hansen and don’t you be forgetting it, motherfucker.”

            “Eh, you’re all fuckwits to me,” Frank shrugged and prepared himself for the first blow.

            And so he took each hit silently, hearing Bob’s voice in his head telling him they were just a bunch of asskissing dickfaces anyways. The phrase might have even made Frank laugh if it hadn’t hurt so much. He wasn’t sure for how long it went on, but it seemed like forever. First a blow to the stomach, then the head, then his shoulders, and then his stomach again. _Don’t show them you’re in pain. Don’t give them the satisfaction._   Frank coughed and spluttered, blood dripping unevenly from a cut along the top of his head. But he didn’t cry. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to get stitches again.  _I’m not wrong, I’m not wrong, I’m not wrong,_ he chanted to himself in his head. Every blow and insult thrown at him tried to tell him differently, drew the wrongness of his existence in black and blue marks on his skin. But, in that part of him deep in his bones, Frank knew that no matter what his parents said, or what his parents said the Bible said, or whatever the stupid heteronormative asskissing dickfaces from school said, there  _was_  nothing wrong with Frank. He  _knew._

            After the guys left, not laughing, just with disgusted looks on their faces, he stayed facedown on the asphalt. His sides were aching way too much to even attempt to get up. Oh shit, how was Frank going to explain his appearance to his parents? This is why he hated getting beaten up. His hair felt all wet and sticky because of the blood that had seeped into it, and he his uniform was now covered in dirt. Not to mention the spectacle of bruises he was sure to have in the morning.

            Some point in time later, a long shadow appeared and made its way over to Frank’s motionless form.

            “Frank?” Gerard’s voice asked. Frank couldn’t decide if he felt more relieved or embarrassed that it was Gerard who had found him.

            “… Gerard?” Frank rolled over and hissed when a painful throbbing shot through his side. Gerard caringly knelt down by him to inspect the damage. He really hoped it wasn’t that bad. Frank’s stomach simultaneously lurched sickeningly and did a little flip as the boy pressed a hand to a nasty bruise on his side. The older boy’s hair fell around his face and there was his tongue, sticking out of the corner of his mouth just so. Frank sat up slowly, Gerard retreating at an equally slow pace.

            Since their meet up at Comic Connection, Frank and Gerard had had exactly two other conversations. Incredibly meaningful conversations. Featuring zombies.

            “Who was it this time?” asked Gerard sympathetically.

            “They came at me with lacrosse sticks, man,” Frank groaned.

            “Lacrosse sticks? What the  _fuck_? Who the hell does that? Need help standing? Here, let me get you up.” Gerard threw Frank’s arm over his shoulder and supported him as he got up. Frank clung to the soft skin of Gerard’s waist as he pulled himself agonizingly back up. He was very aware of his side pressed against his dress shirt that was pressed against Gerard. The fabric was coarse and uncomfortable. Two layers between them.

            “Can you walk?” Gerard asked. Frank staggered forward a couple of steps and gave a weak thumbs up. “Good, okay. I’m gonna take you home and get you cleaned up, okay?” Gerard found Frank’s bag, a new plain grey one, and heaved it over his arm.

            “You don’t need to do that…” Frank insisted. He could make his way back to his own house. Probably.

            “Trust me, I’m a master at this, I’ve done it a million times. I promise, we’re only a couple of blocks away.”

            “I mean, my parents really are expecting me home…” Frank muttered, flushing when he thought about how angry his dad would be when he saw Frank. Also, way to sound like a total prick in front of Gerard who was so obviously the coolest person he knew.

            “We have Pop Tarts and coffee.” Frank’s head snapped up. Gerard grinned widely at him, the sort of magical grin that implanted itself on people’s faces without them even realizing it.

            “I knew I had good instincts about you,” Gerard said proudly, and Frank’s stomach did a little flip. Gerard had had instincts about him?  _Good_  instincts too! He carefully added ten points to his coolness factor.

            The walk to his house was filled mostly with Gerard’s anxious chatter. He did not seem to follow the normal rules of talking, apparently spurting off whatever came to mind and frequently quoting both  _Lord of the Rings_  and  _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_. Frank’s side was killing him. On the plus side, the bleeding on his head seemed to have stopped. Fuck, he must look like total shit in front of Gerard. Perfect.

             Gerard pulled out his keys, little Batman symbols covering them, and let them inside.

             The house they stepped into looked far too normal to belong to the Way’s. To their right was a coat rack covered in scarves and below a mass of shoes. To their left was a wall with an open panel separating the doorway from the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen was a living room with a small television set and some incredibly ugly yet comfortable looking furniture along with the mandatory school photos of Gerard and Mikey. There was also a creepy collection of Russian stacking dolls that Frank did not care to think too much about. Lounging on the pea soup colored couch was a middle-aged man, hair gone completely grey, watching a sports game. He didn’t even look up as they walked in. Directly in front of them was a wooden door and to the right of that, a staircase leading up. The brown door appeared normal at first, but the closer Frank looked, the more he saw of the little drawings in black sharpie. His favorite was of a vampire, a ghoul, and an elf at a Smashing Pumpkins concert.

            “Hi, Dad,” Gerard called to the middle-aged man on the couch.

            “Hey, son,” he replied, still not looking up. Frank wondered if his presence was even acknowledged at all. Mostly though, he was baffled. There was no grueling interrogation about his day or any sorts of mention of his schoolwork. Were all families like this?

             Gerard hung up his jacket on the coat hanger and opened the decorated door to reveal another staircase leading down to a basement. Frank followed slowly, mentally preparing himself to enter what he could only assume to be Gerard’s secret lair.

             Frank knew that Gerard made art, but never knew like this. There were drawings and paintings  _everywhere_. On easels, on the floor itself, on his desk, on his bed, on the walls, and even sticking out from between pages of some scattered books. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing he noticed was that the room itself could probably qualify as a toxic wasteland. The floor looked like a motherfucking landmine. Paintbrushes, scraps of canvas, sketchbooks, dirty clothes, food dishes, and the biggest collection of comics Frank has ever seen littered the floor. In the corner was a cracked CD player and a rack of Gerard’s music right next to a shitty TV set. Honestly, Frank wanted to pick through it with rubber gloves and a giant bottle of disinfectant, but he also knew that his parents would disapprove of Gerard and his room 100%, and that was a little thrilling.

            “One sec,” Gerard said, grabbing a pair of jeans and a Led Zeppelin shirt that had been lying on the floor for who knows how long and darted into the bathroom. Exactly one minute and four second later, Gerard jumped back outside looking kind of badass in his non-uniform and peered up at Frank shyly.

            “So, what do you think?” he asked.

            “Truthfully? I’m having a bit of a conflict of interests in my head at the moment, but the overall verdict is cool.” Gerard gave another one of his wide grins.

            “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said and brought Frank into the bathroom. It was really fucking tiny. Frank ended up sitting on the sink while Gerard was sort of sandwiched between the shower and Frank. Gerard made an awkward hand gesture towards Frank’s chest. At first he had no idea what his friend meant, but a second or two later it hit him and he nodded his head to hide his embarrassment. Carefully, Gerard reached out and undid each button, his face hidden from view. Frank held his breath and tried to think of anything but the cute guy taking off his clothes.

            “Fuck,” Gerard whispered. Frank inhaled sharply in agreement when he saw the scrapes and marks underneath his dress shirt. Gerard reached out just a little bit and looked up as if to ask if it was okay to touch him. Frank nodded quickly again, totally humiliated and also slightly turned on. His head was starting to spin a bit, but he was sure it had nothing to do with the injuries he had sustained. Looking down, he saw Gerard’s fingers trace over the lacrosse stick shaped bruises forming on his skin. When Gerard’s fingers ran over a particularly nasty one, Frank whined, “Ow.”

            “Sorry, sorry!” Gerard said, pulling back his fingers.

            “’S okay,” Frank said, hoping he would keep on touching him, but instead Gerard grabbed a washcloth and wrung it out in the sink, and then suddenly he was  _right there_. Frank focused as hard as he could on his own breathing, the toilet, _anything else,_  sneaking peeks up at Gerard every now and then who was bent caringly over him, only inches away.

            “Frankie, these are really bad,” Gerard said. Frank secretly reveled in the nickname. He just shrugged. He supposed they were really bad, but it didn’t really matter to him anymore. It was already in the past. The only thing that he could think about right now was Gerard and the room that was so gloriously small.

             Gerard bit his lip. “Why… why’d you say they did it again?” Frank looked at the shower curtain, a faded blue and covered in residue at the bottom. “You don’t have to tell me… if, if you don’t want or anything,” Gerard mumbled.

            “Yeah, no, no, it’s fine really. Uhh, I guess they don’t really approve of some of my lifestyle choices.”

            “Well that wasn’t vague at all,” Gerard said. Frank just shrugged.

            “It doesn’t matter,” Frank sighed. Gerard’s rough fingers brushed Frank’s hair back, tenderly wiping up the drying blood. To harness his roaming thoughts, Frank asked, “Where’s Mikey?”

            “What?” Gerard said, looking back at Frank, eyes all huge like a deer caught in the headlights.

            “Where’s Mikey” Frank asked him again.

            “Oh, uhh, oh  _fuuuuuuuck!_  I missed croquet practice!”

            “Croquet practice?”

            “Yeah, it’s really cool. We have, like, this croquet club thing! I guess it’s just Mikey, Ray, and I, though I’m pretty sure the only reason they’re in it is for me. Croquet’s awesome, dude. You should totally join!”

            “Croquet?” Frank asked, a little skeptical. Well, no, really fucking skeptical.

            “Fuck yeah! I am the master of the wicket.”

             Frank laughed, ignoring the twinge in his side. A dark purple bruise had bloomed on his right side. How attractive.

             Gerard reached across Frank and opened the cabinet behind the sink, which he was careful not to bang against Frank’s head. He smelled vaguely disgusting, but also with hints of sweet things like processed sugar and charcoal. There was a little red mark on his cheekbone, right in Frank’s line of vision that he envisioned to look sort of like a heart. He knew it was weird, he swore he knew it was weird, but all he could think about was kissing and licking and doing God knows what else to that one little birth mark. Gerard pulled out a blue icepack that looked like the ones they use in cartoons, all lumpy and misshapen. He placed one hand on lightly Frank’s bare skin to stable himself and then pressed the ice-cold bag tenderly to his other side. Gerard’s hand held the icepack against Frank’s burning skin while he moved the other to brace his weight on the slightly damp counter right next to Frank’s hip, though Frank still felt the place where his hand had rested tingling slightly. Frank felt Gerard’s eyes boring into his skin. _Probably straight, he’s probably straight,_  Frank reminds himself.

            “You, umm…” Frank began.

            “Yeah?” Gerard asked dreamily, eyes sliding into Frank’s. How the fuck did he do that? Frank’s voice caught in his throat, which he then cleared awkwardly.

            “You can let go now,” he said then mentally kicked himself. Repeatedly. Gerard stared down at his hand separated from Frank’s bare torso by the icepack like he had never seen it before in his life.

            “Oh, right,” he said, flushing a funny reddish color before letting Frank move his hand onto the icepack. Gerard shuffled backwards towards the door, leaving a couple feet of sexual tension between them. “Umm, that’s about all I can do for you. You look a little better. Your parents probably won’t notice now.”

             He jumped off of the counter and inspected himself in the mirror. Frank did look a bit better, no longer covered in dirt and blood. Slowly, he rebuttoned his shirt and then turned to the doorway. Gerard was tugging at a chunk of his hair again.

            “So, how ‘bout those Pop Tarts?” Frank asked, shooting a winning grin at him.

            “Yeah, totally!” Gerard agreed and ran them back upstairs. He explained the door as they waiting for their coffee. “It was kind of a product of boredom really. I wanted to write a whole storyboard on it, but what if I ended up hating my storyboard afterwards and then I just had this shithenge comic on my bedroom door, you know? That one with the ghosts ballroom dancing, that one’s for Elena, my grandma, remember? And the one with all those broken china dolls and shit is for my ma. My dad’s really into, like, sports cars and stuff so I made him that one with Godzilla playing with Ferraris and Mustangs and stuff like the toy cars you have when you’re a kid. You know those? Mikey loved them so much but I was way more into reenacting Star Wars scenes and pretending we were wizards and stuff. Then this one day Mikey and I were in the living room and my dad was watching the news about this drive by shooting downtown and he was so freaked out that he made me help him bury all of his toy cars in the backyard. What was I talking about?”

            “Your door.”

            “Oh right! Well, Mikes is fucking  _in love_  with the Smashing Pumpkins, so that one’s his. Ray’s got one up there too.”

            “Who are the rest for then?” Frank asked, munching into a blueberry Pop Tart.

            “Uhh, me I guess. I mean, I don’t really, you know,  _like_  that many other people,” Gerard said, handing Frank a mug with the words “WORLD’S COOLEST MOM” and little cartoon skull and crossbones on the bottom.

            “I’ll drink to that,” Frank said, clinking his mug against Gerard’s. While tentatively sipping their overly bitter coffee, Gerard gave Frank the grand tour of the house. There was the living room, which held the TV and “nothing else worth seeing” (Gerard steered Frank away from the baby pictures at warp speed), the bathroom that was overflowing with hair products (Mikey’s) and little post-its covered in handwriting that would make a doctor’s look neat (Gerard’s), and the dining room or more practically named That Room Where The Ways Dump Their Crap That They Don’t Want. It seemed like a pretty basic system to Frank. Though the rest of the house wasn’t nearly as messy as Gerard’s basement, it was just way more  _lived in_  than any of the other houses Frank had ever been in, but in his defense, most of those houses had belonged to his parents’ friends who always had  _something_  up their ass.

             Back in the basement, Gerard flopped down onto his bed, and Frank tried not to look at him spread eagle on his back too much. Instead, he sat down carefully in the cleanest corner of the room, right next to Gerard’s art desk and began sifting through the paper experimentally. Gerard would do most of the talking, going on and on about everything from school (“I can’t wait to get out of that fucking place,”) to the new pair of socks he got last week (“They’re really goddamn comfortable,”). Every now and then, Frank would interject with a story of his own (“One time, Bob slashed someone’s tires for calling me short,”) or a question about one of the art pieces (“Is that Christina Ricci as a zombie?”). It was quite a nice pattern actually. Frank felt so comfortable around Gerard and, for once in what had seemed like a really fucking long time, he was completely happy.

             Mikey came in at around 4, giving Gerard a look he later translated to Frank as “disapproving.” Apparently they had some secret brother code of talking, where Mikey would look at him and suddenly burst out laughing while Gerard turned bright red. He probably should have felt left out, but it was more hilarious than anything else.

             For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, it was the three of them, sprawled on the basement floor, telling stupid jokes and teasing each other. Mikey was full of embarrassing childhood stories about Gerard, including the one time that he had played Peter Pan in the middle school musical and Elena had made him a costume complete with green tights for the part. Frank had even coaxed Gerard into singing “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, ending in a jazz-hands-filled dance number. They all laughed until their sides felt like they were going to burst.

             Just as the sun was starting to slip behind the roofs of the neighbors’ houses, Gerard pulled out a half filled bottle of vodka and three coffee mugs. Mikey accepted his shot gladly, downing it like a master. Gerard, however, drank up two shots like water, letting out a contented sigh and shaking out his limbs slightly.

            “I’ve been waiting for that  _all day_ ,” he cooed. Filling up the third coffee cup, he offered some to Frank. “Want some?”

            “Uhh, I…” Frank stumbled. He had never had alcohol before. But what if Gerard thought he was a giant pussy ass loser if he didn’t? What if they didn’t want to be friends with him anymore?  _This is way too cliché to actually be my thought process_ , he thought exasperatedly. Frank went through a minor panic attack in his head before Mikey spoke up.

            “It’s okay if you don’t want some, Frank,” Mikey told him. It wasn’t in a taunting way either; he seemed to genuinely mean it.

             Frank shook his head and said, “I’ll pass.”

             To this, Gerard just shrugged and said, “More for us!”

***

             It was late at night and Gerard was very very very very drunk. Drunk was Gerard! Druuuuunk. He was currently slumped up against the wall, laughing stupidly as Mikey swayed around with his nose in the air like a proper English gentleman. “Indeed, fine sir, this place is quite messy,” he agreed dignifiedly with the lamp. Frank was in the corner, sort of ignoring the two wasted boys, instead experimentally running his hands over everything around him. Gerard would have gone to join him, but it appeared that his limbs had inexplicably forgotten how to work somewhere between the lines of sober and drunkity drunk drunk drunk! Something else lost between the lines? Words with more than one syllable.

            “Gerard, Gerard, Geerard,” Mikey said. Gerard took another swig directly out of the almost empty bottle of vodka. His head felt like it was underwater though and he never wanted to resurface. Everything was fuzzy and soft, pulsing rather dully. How nice it was down here, all thick and peaceful…

            “Gee, Gee, Geeeeee,” Mikey whined, slouching clumsily against Gerard’s shoulder. It looked almost like he was moving in slow motion through the wonderful haze. “I’m so tiiiiiired, Gee. I think…” He let out a massively huge yawn and started playing with Gerard’s hair before remembering he was still talking. “I think… I wanna sleeeeep.”

            “Mmm, sleep,” Gerard mumbled and nodded slowly against Mikey’s gangly frame. In a flat rate of three seconds, Mikey was out cold on the floor.

            “Gerard?” Frank asked. He was holding a plain black t-shirt of Gerard’s, fingering the holes at the bottom and chewing his lip. Frank was so  _pretty_ , Gerard thought.

            “Fraaankie,” Gerard drawled back. Whoa there, his head was falling down to the side. That’s okay, everything looked  _different_  from that angle. He told this to Frank. Or at least he tried to, Gerard wasn’t the best with articulation while drunk. His brain could barely form thoughts other than to take another sip. He did just that and let the now empty bottle fall out of his limp hand to the carpet. Frank crawled over to Gerard and hugged his knees to his chest. He then rested his head sideways on his knees and said, “You know, you’re right. About things looking… different.”

            “Mmm,” Gerard breathed, though again he was sure he had spun some particularly witty non-existent anecdote. Whatever. There was a thick liquid in his head; his fingertips were buzzing slightly. So numb. He was so warm right now…

            “Being around two drunk people kind of makes you feel drunk too,” Frank mused softly. “Are you… you guys really love each other, don’t you?” he asked, gesturing towards Gerard’s hand, which apparently had been absently stroking Mikey’s head in his lap while he slept, face perfectly blank. There was almost no change at all in his facial expression when he was awake and asleep to most people, but Gerard could see it perfectly. When he was sleeping Mikey’s jaw was always longer and more relaxed and there was less of an inward tighten near his eyes. Gerard wished Mikey could look like he was sleeping all the time. Everything seemed better for him.

            “Mmm. He’s m’ best friend. You have that with your family?”

             Frank squeezed his eyes shut real tight just once and then gave a simple, “No.”

            “Why not?”

            “You’re drunk, Gee.”

            “Drunk,” Gerard repeated. “Why not?” he asked again.

            “God hates fags,” Frank replied bitterly. “And I guess so do my parents.”

            “I…” Gerard was being pulled from his cottony world between consciousnesses, like his body was telling him he would want to remember this. Frank’s face was radiantly pale in the dark, sharply in focus, and eyes as dark as they got.  “Frankie, why’d you switch schools?”

             There was a deep breath and then the story began. “Six months ago. I think that’s when it happened. He was one of Bob’s friends. I mean, I had no idea I was… that I wanted… yeah, until he kissed me. Fuck, it took me so long to get over him. I mean, I… I told my parents and…” Frank tried to cough the lump in his throat away. “They kept me in the house for the whole summer. It wasn’t like they were constantly yelling at me, or anything. It was kind of the opposite. They were just so fucking quiet. Every time they looked at me, it was like I had two heads or I was contagious or something. And then at night… at night they’d pray to God for me to get better, like I’ve got some disease. Loudly. I could hear them from my bedroom. And that wasn’t even the worst part of it. The worst part… that was Confession. All I can remember from that time is being trapped in this tiny claustrophobic wooden box telling a priest that there was something wrong with me for loving him. Then he’d tell me that I was bad and wrong. I fucking felt it too. It was like God was turning his back on me.” Gerard didn’t feel warm at all. He felt like there was the weight of a thousand icy bricks pressing down on him. He wanted to tell Frankie that he wasn’t wrong. There was nothing wrong. With either of them.

            “I don’t know why I told you that. I barely know you,” Frank muttered. “I’m sorry.” What was he sorry for? Gerard was going to ask him that, he was going to tell Frank that he had felt that way at first too, that everything would be alright, but everything was becoming so thick and hazy again. Mikey’s deep breathing, the fabric of Frank’s pants rubbing together, this distant yelling from the house across the street, all the sounds around him were muddling together. The chair waved lazily at him and their flashlight blinked blearily.

            “Frank…” he managed, but Frank just helped him slip down onto the floor. The dead weight of Mikey’s body slid off of him.  _No_ , he thought, trying to fight the coming blanket of night because Frank needed to hear it. He was fucking this one up! Why did he fuck everything up? He couldn’t even stay awake long enough to… to…

            “Just sleep right now, okay? This is going to hurt in the morning,” Frank murmured before everything faded to the silky black waters beneath the cliff of consciousness.

***

 Chapter 5: In Which Gerard’s Drinking Habits Bite Him In the Ass and Elena Says Hello 

            “Are you sure he’s not dead?”

            “Oh yeah, he’s fine. Hey, hand me that coffee?”

            “Why aren’t we just waking him up again?”

            “We’d like to remain in one piece.”

            “Got it.”

             Something beautifully bitter and steamy was floating right beneath Gerard’s nose. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing was the evil fire-breathing dragon that had taken up residence in his head. _Don’t open your eyes,_ he reminded himself. It had taken a while for him to get used to hangovers, but by now, Gerard was a pro. He took a minute to muster the energy to groggily ask, “What day is it?”

            “Saturday,” came a voice. Lower than Mikey’s. Why was anyone else waking him up besides Mikey? Oh, right. Frank. Something clicked in Gerard’s head, though the fire-breathing dragon made damn well sure he didn’t actually get to know what it was. “I should probably walk home soon.”

            “Sure you don’t want breakfast? We have Pop Tarts,” Mikey offered.

            “Is that all you Ways eat?” Frank asked.

            “No. We have Lucky Charms too,” Gerard supplied, rolling onto his back.

            “Ooh, fuck yeah!” Mikey said and Gerard heard him sprint up the stairs. He had pulled himself up and took an experimental sip of coffee. It burned the back of his throat, but the sensation was familiar and helped anchor him back to the ground. Carefully, he cracked open one eye.  _Roar!_  went the dragon.  _Feel my wrath!_ cried the beam of sunlight from the basement’s single window.  _Why?!_  went Gerard.

            “Hey, uhh, Gee?” Frank asked. He was playing with his hands again and there was a nasty cut just visible by his hairline. Why…  _oh fuck._  Gerard remembered now. Frank had gotten beat up at school, he had brought him home, he had gotten drunk and… and…. Yes,  Gerard remembered. _Should I ask him about it? Bring it up now? Later? Pretend it never happened? Say I was too drunk?_

             Frank, of course, saved him from continuing his train of thought. “Do you remember, uhh, anything from last night?”

            “Bits and pieces,” he lied. He hoped that it was a specific enough answer to convince Frank that he didn’t remember what he had said while never actually explicitly saying that he didn’t. It appeared so, but neither of them could be quite sure since Mikey had come bounding down the stairs again, a colorful cereal box nestled beneath his arm.

            “Personally, I think that the shooting stars are the best,” he proclaimed, popping a fistful into his mouth.

            “No way, motherfucker, it’s obviously the horseshoe,” Gerard retorted.

            “They’re all made from the same stuff therefore they all taste the same,” Frank logically deduced. They Way brothers apparently, however, did not logically deduce.

            “We’re talking about the whole sensory aspect of the charm, not just taste,” Gerard explained, as if it was like, “Duh!”

            “The visuals change the experience drastically,” Mikey included.

            “Not even to mention the shape,” Gerard added.

            “Shape is arguably most important!” Mikey agreed.

            “Then in that case, you two are both wrong, it’s the rainbow,” Frank decided.

            “Psh,” Mikey scoffed.

            “Think about it. They’re like the horseshoes, but they have five more colors,” he explained.

            “He has a point there,” Gerard admitted. Mikey telepathically communicated, “Oh riiiight, side with the cute one.”

            “Why are we discussing this again?” Frank asked.

            “This shit is  _relevant_  in today’s tumultuous society,” Mikey said, and Gerard grabbed a handful of overly sugary cereal from the box.

             The rest of the morning (well, afternoon really) was spent over the box of Lucky Charms and a discussion involving the leprechaun turned demonic and finally exacting his revenge on those three asshole kids that kept chasing him. It was around one o’clock when Frank insisted that he  _really_  had to go as he was in enough shit as it was. Gerard helped him perfect his lie about all the head wound, then the two brothers sent him on his way.

            “Elena’s coming over in ten minutes,” Mikey mentioned casually from Gerard’s bedroom floor, religiously ingesting coffee.

            “What?!” Gerard exclaimed, jumping up from his bed where he was still in the clothes he wore yesterday and flipping through his new Fangoria.

            “Yeah, forgot to mention it,” Mikey said, completely indifferent. But then again, he was already dressed, showered, and fucking presentable.

            “Shit, shit, shit!” He scrambled around, grabbing clothes off the ground and sniffing them, trying to find the ones that didn’t fucking reek.

            “I left the basket of ironed clothes upstairs in the bathroom,” Mikey said. He grabbed the remote and started flipping through the static filled channels, actually looking bored.

            “You suck,” Gerard said, taking the stairs two at a time.

            “Love you too!” his brother called after him.

            Ten minutes, a shitload of baby wipes, and a clean pair of pants later, the doorbell rang.

            “Coming!” Gerard yelled, messing up his hair in the mirror then smoothing it over then messing it up again.

            “Hey, Grandma!” Mikey said, holding the door wide open for her. Gerard scowled at him from the top of the staircase, but it didn’t matter much to anyone in the room.

            Elena Way was the coolest old person to ever walk the planet. To this, the whole Way family and pretty much anyone else who met her could attest. First of all, she barely looked past sixty years old. Elena said that this was due to a good long life of not giving a shit. Second, she was the most talented person Gerard knew. She had showed him how to draw, how to paint, how to sing, and pretty much everything else he didn’t exponentially suck at. The only thing that she couldn’t do for her life was dance. “But who the hell needs dancing?” she always reasoned.

            “Hello, Mikey!” she beamed and he bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Looking more ruggedly handsome every time I see you. And hair looking rad,” she admired. He brought a hand up shyly to the meticulously designed faux hawk. “Now, where’s your lump of a brother?”

            “I’m up here, Elena!” Gerard called, running down the stairs and giving her a huge hug.

            “Gerard Arthur Way! When was the last time you showered?”

            “This morning, Grandma.”

            “Wiping yourself off with a wet towel does not count as a shower,” she reprimanded him.

            “They were baby wipes,” he muttered.

            “Gerard, you smell like a park full of wet dogs.” He rolled his eyes at her and trudged back upstairs. In five minutes flat, he was back downstairs and scrubbing his hair dry with a towel.

            “… but I told him he needed to get his shit together and listen to some Pentagram before he could even  _think_  about getting some of this,” Elena was saying.

            “Grandma!” Mikey gasped.

            “Gerard, looking much more presentable. Come on, sit down. Mikey’s gotten quite good at making coffee, you know.”

            “Yes he has,” Gerard agreed. “Your hair looks great,” he commented. It had changed from its usual electric blue to a neon green color. It actually did look quite nice. It brought out the color in her eyes, the exact same color that both he and Mikey had inherited.

            “Why, thank you, Gerard! Phillis came down to New York and helped me do it at home. Those salons, don’t ever go to them boys. They charge too much and they don’t do that shit no better than you can do yourself.”

            “Okay, Elena,” Mikey said, secretly snickering behind his coffee mug.

            “Have you been drawing?” Elena asked, clicking her black fingernails against the tabletop.

            “Every day. Do you wanna see some of it?”

            “As if you have to ask!” she said, batting at him playfully. Gerard heard her asking Mikey about playing his bass as he left to go to the basement. Mikey had started playing bass guitar in middle school, more as a hobby than anything (or so he pretended), but Gerard knew that he was better at it than anyone else he knew. He always told Mikey that he should join a band, but he only shrugged that sort of comment away.

            Gerard resurfaced with his favorite drawings of the past week, one of the ghosts of the people found dead in a lake near Ray’s house and one simply of a tree Gerard saw on his way to school that he liked. Elena pushed her zebra print glasses up her nose and peered at them critically.

            “This ghost one is badass! The detail is awesome in the man right here, but you need to work on the perspective in a couple of places. See here,” she pointed to the stomach of a woman, “if you’re going to make her see through, you’ve got to make sure that everything is in proportion to each other, otherwise it looses the effect.”

            “Cool, thanks Grandma.”

            “What’s the tree about though?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well, what are you trying to  _say_  through the picture?” she asked him.

            “Uhh, I don’t know like…. it’s, like, this tree I walk past when I go to school and it’s kind of big and interesting… and stuff.”

            Elena put on her serious-artist-talk face and folded her youthful hands. “Gerard, you have to ask yourself, ‘Why am I drawing? What is the point of my art? What am I trying to  _say_?’”

            Only Elena could pull that sort of shit with Gerard. If anyone else tried to get him to think about his artistic style or vision or, fucking hell, what he wanted to  _do_ with his life, he would have either a) spun a bunch of bullshit if he had enough energy or b) punched someone in the fucking face. Mostly option a though. Gerard was neither the type to hurt anyone nor actually telling someone what was going on inside of his head. But, it was Elena and Elena was right about everything, so he trusted that she was going somewhere good with this.

            “I’d like to not be scared? That’s what I’m trying to say. I think. Maybe. I don’t know. Sure. Yeah. Maybe.”

            Elena laughed. “Okay then, Gerard. Now, goodness I never thought I’d say something like this ever in my life but now is as good time as ever. How are you going to make the tree say that?”

            Gerard sat there, staring dramatically into his coffee as if it held the answer to all the shit in his life. Mostly, it just held a crapload of coffee grounds at the bottom because he had gotten the shitty last bits from the pot.

             Elena, being the Buddha of everything, said, “It’s okay, one day it’ll make sense.” She patted his hand affectionately and asked if she was ever going to see their “hellhole of a bedroom.” Gerard squirmed a bit, but Mikey jumped gladly up to show her, overcome with brotherly schadenfreude. Gerard was not impressed. However, he did feel slightly better when Elena called Mikey out on it and also pointed that it was practically Mikey’s bedroom too.

            “What will I do with you two?” she laughed.

            “Nothing I hope,” Gerard said.

            “Especially after the Mr. Santos incident!” Mikey added.

            “We will never forget,” Gerard said.

            “I will never live that down, will I?” Elena asked.

            “Never,” asserted Mikey.

            “Hey, Mikes, play her your bass!” Gerard encouraged, picking up the shitty used bass guitar resting neatly against the art table.

            “Uhh…” Mikey said. Gerard cold just see him preparing for the all-powerful shrug, so he sent a dramatic look to Elena, enlisting her help.

            “Mikey Way, don’t you dare get out of this one like you did last time.”

            “And the time before that,” Gerard added.

            “And the time before that.”

            “And the time befo–“

            “Alright, alright.” Mikey said, and snatched the bass up.

             Mikey was actually pretty good at bass. Much better than he would ever admit. It’s not as if the bass was a particularly melodic instrument, but he seemed to love it. When most people seemed to go into their own world when they entered their element, Mikey seemed to finally enter the real world. He was always surrounded by this little bubble of Mikey; it was amazing when he didn’t look around at things like they were completely foreign. Things were different when he was playing. He was happy.

             He barely ever got to hear his little brother play bass. While Gerard was sober that was. He could vaguely remember his little brother sitting cross legged on his bed in the basement bent painstakingly over the guitar fingering chords while Gerard was sprawled out on the floor drinking the night away and only stopping to rush into the bathroom and hold his older brother’s hair back while he threw up. God, he was such a bad brother.  _I’ll be better to you_ , he promised in his mind.

             Mikey played them “My Generation”, which he insisted had one of the most badass bass lines ever. When he sheepishly finished, the bubble went right back up. Gerard wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You should really join a band,” he informed Mikey for the hundredth time. Elena nodded her head enthusiastically.

            “You know, I actually do know someone! Remember Lillian Schechter? Well, apparently her grandson, Brian, knows all about this music shit. According to Lillian, he’s always over at that Naclerio kid’s house. Setting up a recording studio in his basement I think.”

             Mikey made a noncommittal noise, which he had been hoping in vain would get by Elena but she wouldn’t have any of it. “Michael James Way, you are so full of shit. Accept that you have talent!” she commanded.

            “I have talent,” he repeated stoically and she laughed.

            “And don’t be so antisocial,” she said. “Well, let’s not forget who I  _really_ should be saying that to.” She gave Gerard the most ridiculously meaningful look he had ever received in his life.

            “What?” he asked defensively. Defending what, he was not quite sure as he was in fact a notch up from hermit on the scale of sociability.

            “Compared to you,” Mikey said, “I’m a raging party animal with more friends than… someone with a lot of friends.”

            “And about three different types of STDs,” Elena added.

            “Ahh!” Gerard clapped his hands over his ears. “You did  _not_  just bring up my love life.”

            “It’s alive now?” she joked.

             Mikey smirked at Gerard who howled again and covered his face as Elena’s face lit up in surprise.

            “Not  _really_ …” he managed from behind the wall of sheer embarrassment he had ran headlong into.

            “But there’s someone you  _like_ , isn’t there?” Elena asked, making ridiculous suggestive eyebrow movements at him like a middle school girl.

            “Uhh…” He was completely unaware of what to say in this sort of situation!

            “His name is Frank!” Mikey blurted out. Tell the truth apparently. Unfortunately, that meant that Elena only had more to work with.

            “Ooh, what’s he like? Is he cute?” She drew out the last word teasingly. Middle. School. Girl.

            “No! I mean, maybe, uhh, not really, agh, yes, no, yes, uhh…” he cleared his throat. “A bit.”

            “Yes,” Mikey in translation to his nonsensical sputtering. Gerard looked at him questioningly. “What? I’m not  _that_  straight.”

            “Does that phrase even work?” he asked his brother.

            “Yes!”

            “The real question is,” Elena interjected, “what are you going to do about it, Gerard?”

            “Oh you know… pretend it doesn’t exist…”

             Elena rolled her eyes even more expertly than Mikey. “You’re so hopeless.”

            “He has a  _bit_  of a point,” Mikey mentioned. “I mean we don’t actually know that he’s y’know… gay or anything yet.” Gerard fidgeted only the tiniest of bits. Both their eyes shot towards him. “What do you know that I don’t?” Mikey asked.

            “Just, uhh, something last night…”

            “Did you guys…?”

            “Agh, no. He just sort of, uhh, mentioned it. Like in passing. Or whatever.” Gerard’s already dismal skills in articulation were decreased ten times whenever he was dealing with anything romantic or lying. Or both like now.

            “But he’s most definitely gay?” Elena asked.

            “Uhh… yeah.”

            “Ah! Look at that. Problem solved!” she declared. This only perplexed Gerard, of course. “Oh, Gerard, don’t look at me like that. I’m old. I know things.”

            “Elena, has anyone ever told you that you can be a pain the ass?” Gerard asked.

            “Not as much as you can be, hon.”

***

Chapter 6: In Which A Sandwich Is Launched and Frank Makes a Move

            Frank’s life had taken an unexpected turn. School, something he had previously resigned himself to had become something that he was not entirely dreading every morning. His morning routine went something like this. He woke up in the morning, threw on his clothes as quickly as possible, grabbed a piece of toast, and sprinted out of the door before his parents could call him back inside. From there, he would make his way over to Mikey and Gerard’s home at a pace that he had convinced himself was logically quick without seeming desperate. It was quite an effective process really.

            Wednesday morning, Frank shuffled up the porch steps and opened the door he knew that they left specially unlocked for him in the mornings, which had to mean something considering the dangerous neighborhood they lived in. Inside, he dropped his bag by the front door, the house apparently deserted of all parents.

            It had taken him a couple of days to actually meet his friends’ mother, which he learned was due to the fact that she was working two jobs while her husband was “in between jobs.” She herself was yet another thing he was sure might actually affront his parents to death.

            Firstly, Donna Way’s appearance was something to scare off the conservatives. There was an age to her and an obviously poorly hidden one at that. She had huge masses of platinum blonde hair and wore makeup that had probably gone out of style in the 70’s. Second, Mrs. Way was close to the exact opposite of the ideal 50’s housewife image Frank’s mother preached. When not in her mail carrier uniform, she would simply slouch around a pair of holey sweatpants and baseball t-shirts. Her voice fit her grumpy character, rough and sarcastic after years and years of smoking. As far as her mothering skills went, she didn’t see too much of her kids, explaining how they could get away with all that they did so easily, but when she was with them she could interact with them just as easily as they did with their friends. Frank found himself becoming fonder and fonder of her as she insisted on sharing breakfast with him every morning and embarrassing her sons in front of him every chance she could get.

            Seeing the entire Way family around each other was something unique. There was an air of causality that Frank was sure his family could never achieve. Overall, he found them so different from the world he so desperately wanted to get rid of that he couldn’t help but love every minute of it.

            Frank made his way to the upstairs bathroom where Mikey was toasting some bread with his hair straightener.

           “Oh hi, Frank,” he said then went right back to his bread, brow slightly furrowed as he went through an apparent procedure meaning that this wasn’t the first to Mikey had turned to such creative cooking methods.

           “Hey. Are you making toast with your hair straightener?” Frank asked, just for clarification on the matter.

           “Mhm,” his friend answered.

           “Wouldn’t that to be easier to do, you know, in a toaster?” Frank asked.

            Gerard’s head popped out of Mikey’s bedroom and grinned when he saw Frank. Wow, he inexplicably needed to pee. Gerard sometimes did that to him. “We don’t let him use kitchen appliances after The Great Toaster Incident of Ninth Grade,” he explained.

           “That was one time!” Mikey complained while Frank and Gerard snickered. Mikey bit into his toast satisfactorily and said, “Now you don’t get any of my toast.”

            Gerard walked out in his school uniform, pants slightly too long, shirt untucked, and tie hanging limply around his shoulders. Artfully disheveled as ever, Frank internally sighed. Snap out of it, man. Gerard gave another great big grin.

            Frank loved it when Gerard smiled. Really smiled that was, not just a bitter or sarcastic twinge to his lips. That was most of the time. But occasionally, he could pretend that Gerard was letting go of his unhappiness just for a moment to give him a real smile. These moments never lasted long; sometimes they were contained within smiles, a brief glimmer in his eyes of hope beneath all his doom and gloom. Mostly though, Gerard just looked sad.

           “Hi, Frankie. Sorry, we’re almost finished, just  _someone_  needs to take forever to get ready in the mornings.” He shot Mikey a disturbingly meaningful look.

           “One must always be prepared to look pretty,” his brother replied honestly. Gerard gave Frank a can-you-believe-this-kid look.

           “Want breakfast? We’ve got…”

           “Pop Tarts?” Frank supplied.

           “Always!” Gerard declared.

           “Nah, I’m good actually. Don’t want to get too much sugar on Mikey’s hair straightener.”

           “Good to go,” Mikey affirmed and perched his glasses on his nose as the final touch.

            Ray was waiting for them at the end of the street, a cup of Starbucks coffee in hand for each of them.

           “Black coffee per request of Mikey,” he said handing off the first cup to the younger brother, “cappuccino for Gee, and…”

           “Pumpkin motherfucking spice latte!” Frank cheered, jumping on Ray’s back and grabbing the drink out of his hand. He gulped down a huge sip and let the sugary drink scorch his throat. “De-fucking-licioius! I love fall! Ray Toro, you are a saint, the messenger of perfection in a coffee cup, the savior of us all in our regular coffee hells!” Frank  _really_  liked pumpkin spice lattes.

           “I just bought it as the Starbucks around the corner…” Ray shrugged. Frank reached both his hands into the terrifying abyss that was his friends’ hair and shook it thoroughly (out of only the greatest of affection he will have you know) before jumping off his back. “What did we say about the hair?” Ray reminded him.

           “Oh right!” Frank bent his head low and reached his non-coffee cradling arm into the air and stated in the utmost solemnity, “I apologize for disturbing the peace of the almighty fro and request to be spared from its terrifying wrath.”

           “Apology accepted,” Ray nodded and discreetly fluffed his head.

            The four of them walked to school, faithfully consuming their caffeine and making plans to play DND after school at the brothers’ house. It was the foursome’s unofficial hangout spot, as Frank’s was obviously a no go and Ray’s brother had a band that needed the space to practice. Frank had been spending almost every afternoon with his three new best friends, coming up with an elaborate lie about an SAT study group he had joined, which took almost three days to execute completely. They never did much, just sat around and pissed away the time watching horror movies, listening to punk records, and generally messing around. This resulted in Frank having to do his homework in the dead of night, that way allowing for him to spend his afternoons with his friends while still having his fully completed homework to show to his parents when he got home. All factors lead up to his new passionate love for all caffeine whether in the form of coffee, soda, or Pop Tarts.

            As far as bad influences went, Frank wasn’t completely untouched. His newfound friends were a wonderful source of cigarettes. He technically _had_ smoked before, lots of times actually with Bob, just the current situation required a bit more of a cleaning process as not to arouse his parents’ suspicions with the smells. Frank had learned that, though Mrs. and Mr. Way remained ignorant to or otherwise indifferent about their sons’ nicotine intakes, Elena would go as far to buy the boys cigarettes when they ran short. Frank decided that she was officially the coolest grandma ever and he hadn’t even met her.

            The boys had gotten drunk again four times in the past three weeks. Frank learned that Ray drank too, though not as much as Mikey and Gerard did. He was the most lucid drunk person of the three, barely slurring his words and spouting off at least somewhat logical things. Mikey proved to be the most entertaining while drunk, posh British people just the tip of the iceberg as far as his fairly extensive catalogue of impressions went. He morphed into a completely different person, expressive, dramatic, and utterly ridiculous. Gerard drank the most of all of them. He once came to school completely wasted and Frank held his hair back while he threw up in the toilets at lunchtime. He was neither very lucid nor outrageous when he consumed alcohol. He simply got very quiet and numb, completely unaffected by the world around him and undeniably depressing. He could function quite well in the early stages, which would have been fine really if Gerard didn’t insist so much on drinking himself into oblivion.

            The best part about his new friends though was the inexplicable sense of belonging he felt when he was with them. None of them ever judged him nor made him feel like he was some sort of freak show. Frank loved their mentality. It was something like, “You’re a loser? Awesome, we’re all weird ass motherfuckers here!” That didn’t stop them all hating it, though. It just left them a little less alone in their hatred of everything around them.

           “You guys coming in?” Frank asked when they reached the steps leading into the school. Mikey shrugged his shoulders.

           “Nah, I’m skipping until lunch,” he said.

           “Art’s pretty much the only class that keeps me coming here anymore,” Gerard sighed and sauntered off in the direction of their not nearly large enough art building.

           “Just you and me then,” Ray said brightly. He walked alongside Frank through the squealing and chattering huddles of people. “You know, some times I think maybe we deserve all the crap they give us,” he confided.

           “What the hell, dude? That’s just some bullshit in your head.”

           “No, no, not that. Like, when was the last time you ever stood up for yourself?”

            Frank rolled his eyes and the ridiculous turn the conversation was taking. “Seventh grade, and it got the shit beaten out of me. Why?”

           “Never mind. It was a dumb idea anyways,” Ray sighed.

***

            When Geometry ended, Frank dashed out to the steps which was where he, Gerard, Ray, and Mikey ate lunch most of the time. At that moment however, it seemed that it was just Ray and him for the moment. They sat on the stone steps, slightly away from the rest of the school and talked guitar. Ray was the best guitarist Frank knew, which wasn’t saying a lot considering that he was the  _only_ guitarist Frank really knew besides Bob’s brother, but there was no denying that his crazy haired friend could  _shred._  It hadn’t taken very long for him to observe Ray’s mad skills as he practically ate, slept, and breathed guitar. Even when his ax wasn’t slung over his lap, Frank could sometimes catch his fingers making small shifts like they were forming chords. When he actually had his guitar with him he would show the three friends new songs he learned and even a couple little riffs he wrote himself. Frank couldn’t imagine he could ever be as talented to write his own music, but Ray disagreed. “The music’s inside us all,” he would say, “You just gotta know where to find it.”

            At that moment, Gerard waltzed into the premises. Was it just Frank or was he walking a little oddly?

           “Heeeeeey, guys,” he sang and sat down a weirdly far distance away.  _What’s his deal_? Frank thought.

           “Gerard?” Ray asked.

           “Yeah?”

           “Are you drunk again?”

           “Nah, just a little stoned,” Gerard answered.

            Frank turned to Ray. “You smoke weed?”

           “Not really. Well, Mikey does, but Gerard just pops pills occasionally.”

           “That can’t be good.”

           “Eh, it’s not so bad.”

            It was then that Gerard pulled out from his brown paper bag lunch a banana. A  _banana._ Frank didn’t even thing Gerard knew what a banana was. He gave Ray a look.

           “Okay, maybe sometimes it gets a little out of hand when he, y’know,” he shook his head in the direction of Gerard who was subsequently peeling the fruit, “starts eating excellent sources of potassium, but I promise you that we never let him get anywhere near citrus fruits.”

            Frank nodded solemnly. “It’s only because I care. I hear that fruit can be gateways to…” he lowered his voice, ”vegetables.”

           “Says the vegetarian.”

           “Beer and potato chips is a vegan lifestyle,” Frank pointed out.

            After that, Mikey shuffled into the patio and made a beeline for the three boys. His hair that had been so immaculately straightened in the morning was now sticking up an odd curved angle in the back and his glasses were ever so slightly tipped to the right. What had he been doing?

            He sat down near his brother and turned towards him.

           “Gee, are you eating a banana?

           “Mphm,” the older brother answered through his first mouthful.

           “He hasn’t done that since Christmas three years ago. Those pills you got must be really goddamn good.”

           “Everything else was weirding me out,” Gerard explained. Frank shrugged to himself and pulled out a powder blue thermos his mom had packed. And then, all of a sudden,  _wump!_  What the fuck?

            Frank looked down and subsequently picked up a soggy piece of mayo-covered bread with a little bit of lettuce hanging off of it. A rogue flying sandwich had appeared out of nowhere! Unfortunately the giant fucking whoops of laughter coming from the tables where the rest of the normal human beings were sitting told him differently. Nick McJockstrap adorned in his oh-so-fucking-cool letterman jacket was sticking out his finger at the four friends and smirking while the rest of the people around him were cackling hysterically at Frank’s sandwich assault. This was  _so_  unamusing. Mikey’s mouth hung open in disgust at the crime scene while Ray who missed everything looked up in confusion. Frank turned to Gerard, face all scrunched up in an effort to describe his unhappiness and  _what the hell_  is equal parts. Despite the fact that he was high enough to think a banana was a suitable lunch option, Gerard shook his head sympathetically because he of all people should know what it was like to get constantly bullied.

            The thing Frank wanted to know was what he even did. One second he was sitting innocently with his thermos lunch and the next there was tomato in his hair. Stupid fucking idiots that need to assert their masculinity over the gay kid. It was either that or they all just hated him because he was small. Little people get all the hate. But in all seriousness, Frank couldn’t believe that they had thrown a sandwich at him for  _absolutely no reason at all._  He flashed between hurt to pissed off to amused to downright confused. Being a teenager sucked. Having emotions sucked. Frank made a mental note to look into becoming a robot. With built in laser eyes to zap away evil soaring sandwiches. Yes, that would do.

***

            He shouldn’t have gone to school that day. Gerard  _knew_  going to school that day was a bad idea. Getting out of bed had seemed like the biggest task in the world, the walk to the bathroom like it was the fucking Sahara Desert. But Mikey was jumping on top of him and then there was Frank and his smile like it was Christmas fucking day. Gerard woke up with that clenching, anxious feeling in his stomach that had no source at all, that feeling that tore him up from the inside out. He looked like shit, he felt like shit, everything was shit. And the worst part of the feeling was that it isolated him even more.

            And, if the twisting in his gut and the writhing in his throat weren’t enough to torture him, it was as if the people at school could  _smell_ it in him. The moment he walked out of math class where he had undoubtedly failed yet another test, thinking about the rigidity of the lines that made up the world he was confined to, it was like he entered a horror movie. A cluster of girls walked right through him like he was nothing, just talking about their stupid fucking empty lives. Then, in the spinning aftermath of being treated like air, a group of kids in his grade that he barely knew of shoved him into the row of lockers behind him and, humiliatingly, a couple going at it like their tongues contained the meaning of life.

           “Hope you didn’t want these, dipshit!” called an especially preppy-looking blonde who shook out his book bag and out spilled a pile of storyboards for Mikey Way: Unicorn Warrior that he had spent all last afternoon perfecting. The pieces of paper floated and skittered down the hallway; some being pushed into corners while others were crushed beneath the herd stampeding feet.

           “Unicorns? Way, you’re such a pussy!” another jeered.

           “They should give you pills to fix your fucked head!”

           “Way, how’s it feel to have your only friend be your skinny little  _freak_  of a brother?”

            Gerard kind of curled up on himself after that. He knew that they were bigger and stronger and faster than him, so he just took the taunts and tried not to feel anything. He failed.

           “Not even gonna fight back, Way? Jeez, what a loser!” The kid shoved him to the floor where his head knocked painfully against the bottom row of lockers. Then, the group of boys ran off down the hallway, kicking papers as they ran off to the sound of the shrill bell.

            The hallway was empty. His hands were shaking as he gathered up the scattered drawings as quickly as he could. The only sound was his breathing torn to shreds. One sketch here was destroyed, another there with a large brown footprint in the middle. Gerard salvaged as much as he could from the wreckage. He couldn’t go to Religious Studies right now. He just couldn’t.

            Gerard stumbled into the bathroom, breathing heavily. His bag made a thick clunking sound as he dropped it to the floor beneath the slippery white sink he was leaning heavily against. He was all alone. So fucking alone it physically hurt him. The air he was breathing couldn’t reach his lungs. No matter how many breaths he took, Gerard still felt like his insides were curling in on themselves and imploding. Nothing about him worked right. He was a freak. A weirdo. There was something undeniably wrong with him, like there was a giant fucking wall separating him from the rest of the world. There was a weight on his chest, bruising him, cracking his ribs apart.  He needed it all to stop.  _Please_ , he thought, _let it stop. Let it all stop. Go away. Make it all go away._ He really needed a fucking drink right now. Gerard wanted the burn in his throat of liquor; he  _needed_  the numbness. Anything to make him feel like there wasn’t a twisted black vine snaking its way around his chest and throat, squeezing until he was bled dry.

             _Think happy thoughts,_  Gerard told himself, _think happy thoughts._  He chanted it over and over again in his head until he was screaming it desperately at himself. Nothing seemed happy. It was all so fucked. Everything happy morphed itself into something dark and disgusting, oozing poison and crawling with worms. The only thing Gerard thought of that didn’t contort into something horrible was Mikey, the one person he knew would never leave him, never give up on him even when he gave up on himself.  _Happy thoughts._  Mikey was a happy thought. But he wasn’t here. Mikey wouldn’t always be there for him to curl up next to when things like this happened. Sometimes, it’d just be him alone in the bathroom.

           “Oh, I can just– “ Frank had stumbled in all beautiful and clueless through the bathroom door to find Gerard curled up on the floor against the side of a stall cradling his head in the crevices of his elbows.

           “No!” Gerard instinctively said and reached out to touch the toe of Frank’s Chuck Taylors lightly. “Can you, I mean, can you just like, I don’t know, stay with me for a little bit? I don’t want to be alone.”

           “Sure,” Frank said. His eyes dimmed themselves, kind of like how he looked when he was smoking so they were all fuzzy and warm. He sat himself down right next to Gerard, knees drawn up to his chest. He nudged Gerard’s foot with his toes once before resting his head against the stall. Frankie was radiating warmth next to him, the two of them only separated by an inch or so and their button down shirts. Gerard peeked at him out of the corner of his eye. He was sitting like Gerard was, with his knees raised and skinny arms wrapped around his legs. His hair was dirty and especially black, making him look paler than usual, but in a nice way Gerard decided.

           “You wanna tell me about it?” Frank asked.

            Gerard blinked ahead at the white tiles before answering. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say until he opened his mouth and started talking. “I just hate that I’m fucking scared of everyone and everything all the time. I hate that I’m useless and a giant fat ass and that I let people push me around and walk all over me. And I can never stay mad at all those shitheads long enough because I know they’re right about me. The only thing I’m good at is fucking up. I don’t fucking care about anything, and I hate that too. I’m such a shit example for Mikey. He deserves a better big brother.” Gerard ducked his head under his arms again, so mad about everything. Mad at this fucking school, mad at Sister Margret for making him cut his goddamn hair, mad at all those fucking people that walked over his drawings, mad at the giant lump in his throat.

           “And here I am spilling my fucking guts to you when all you probably wanted to do was take a piss.”

           “You’re wrong,” Frank said.

           “Oh, you’re taking a shit? Whatever, same dif—“

           “No, I mean you’re wrong about everything you just said. You’re the best big brother I’ve ever seen. You’re the coolest person I’ve ever met and one of the most talented. Your head is filled with all of these insane ideas that I’d never be able to come up with. Everything you do turns out to be a crazy motherfucking adventure. And you are not a fat ass. I think you’re pretty.” Gerard turned his head towards Frank’s earnest eyes filled with such intense sincerity that he could have almost believed him. They both looked down into their laps, Frank a little red.

           “I’m just so afraid that I’ll turn out to be some sort of failure. Or be invisible for the rest of my life. That one day I’ll just become so empty I’ll vanish completely.”

           “Gerard,” Frank said. He set the tips of his fingers on his jaw line right below his ear. Frank’s eyes held his with such a wistful longing like he had already lost something as he leaned in, achingly slow, until the last moment when Gerard slid his eyes shut and closed the distance between their lips.

            Tiny jolts shot through Gerard’s toes and in the place where Frank’s fingers rested on his bare skin. At first their lips barely touched, just brushing each other’s once, twice, then as they became hungrier for each other, they deepened the kiss. Frank’s mouth twisted sweetly beneath Gerard’s, all lovely and warm. The kiss only lasted a couple of seconds before  _wait what?!_  Gerard was kissing Frank.  _Kissing Frank._  What was even going on? He pulled away gently and leaned his forehead against Frank’s. He could still feel Frank’s lips, slightly chapped from how he bit them all the time.

           “Fuck,” Gerard murmured peacefully.

           “… Fuck!” Frank exclaimed. He jumped up, grabbed his bag, and sprinted out of the bathroom without even looking backwards. Okay, that was not how that was supposed to go.

*** 

Chapter 7: In Which Plans are Devised and Amends Are Made

             DND is an incredibly awkward game to play when you are trying to avoid all contact with someone after mortifyingly running out on them after engaging in some pretty heavy conversation and then kissing them on the floor of the boy’s bathroom. This is a conclusion that Frank has come to. He had the feeling that Gerard had also come to this conclusion as he had let Ray take over his beloved position of Dungeon Master for the day. The other two boys were skeptical of this decision at first, knowing Gerard’s love for creating the most ridiculous and impossible storylines ever, but Ray was way too goddamn excited about his new privilege that he didn’t dare question his friend’s motives.

             It had taken Frank several days to even begin understanding Dungeons and Dragons. Seriously, the game was that batshit crazy. He had asked Bob and Pete about it, and they claimed that the game was like video games for the über nerdy. Frank then pointed out that they _were_  the über nerdy, but his two friends had managed to retain some shreds of dignity and standards throughout their adolescence and weren’t having any of it. Gerard, Mikey, and Ray had no such standards. They played croquet for fuck’s sake!

             Secretly, though, Frank loved the game. He took the liberties when making his character so that he would always be mega tall and have industrial strength immune systems. Just in case a devastating outbreak of the common cold struck. Or whatever.

             However, in today’s present circumstances, things couldn’t have been more uncomfortable. He felt like someone had placed a layer of pepper under his skin, which made him antsy and twitchy. His thoughts kept buzzing around in his head.  _Why won’t he look at me? Does he hate me? Is it because it was a bad kiss and now he’s traumatized forever, and now he wants to change his name and move to Canada? OH LORD HE REALLY WAS STRAIGHT! Why am I such an idiot?_

             Frank made up for all the mental detachment and anxiety in physical movement. He had already downed two Cokes, eaten four slices of cold pizza (best food ever!), and gone to the bathroom three times. He was so _humiliated._  First he had had a sandwich thrown at him during lunch and then he kissed one of his best friends who now couldn’t even  _look_  at him. Several times, Frank had tried to make eye contact with Gerard from across the table, but he seemed to be very pointedly looking everywhere except for at Frank.

             Thankfully, about halfway through the game, Ray did the unexpected. “I’ve been thinking,” he began.

            “That sucks,” Mikey retorted. Ray plowed on as if Mikey hadn’t interjected.

            “It was the sandwich today at lunch that made me finally realize it. I’m tired, dudes. I’m tired of being made fun of all the time and being useless and small. Sorry Frank.”

            “None taken.”

            “But the point is, all we ever do is let them push us around, right?”

            “Yeah, but there’s nothing we can really do about that, is there?” It came from Gerard who was staring at his hands.

            “But is that really true?” Ray asked.

            “Too many rhetorical questions,” Mikey complained.

            “What if we stood up for ourselves?” The sentence hung there in the air like a mace, ready to strike. None of them were quite ready to touch it yet, but now that it was out there, there was no denying its existence.

            “That,” Gerard began, “is a really shitty idea.”

            “Why?” Ray whined.

            “First off, we’d never get away with it. Second, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re fucking  _nerds._  We couldn’t defend ourselves if we wanted to. And third, what the hell would we even  _do_?”

            “But see that’s the thing! This thinking thing leads to some really cool things called  _plans_. Pretty cool, right?”

            “So what’s your ingenious plan?” Gerard asked.

            “It wouldn’t have to be fighting people in the parking lots or anything. What I was thinking is that it could just be all these badass pranks we pull on anyone that’s ever been a jerk to us. I have this whole list of stuff we could do that I made in Religious Studies. And no one would even know it’s us if we use our amazing powers of  _stealth_  and  _cunning_. And seriously, think about how much  _fun_  it would be!”

             Mikey turned to Ray, a gesture to indicate careful deliberation. He looked at Frank through his glasses thoughtfully. The rest of them were all waiting for him to say something. “So what you’re saying is that we’d be getting… revenge.”

            “Exactly.”

             Frank’s mind shot through all the wrongs that had ever happened to him. The time in third grade Roger Hunt stole the only candy bar he was allowed all month. The first time he had ever gotten beat up in eighth grade. The time his father found a Sex Pistols CD under his bed and sold his CD player. Confessional.

            “I’m in.” His voice was louder than he intended and a lot firmer than he realized it could be. He was all in on this. He wanted this. But his declaration also had a second meaning. Standing up for himself was scary. It wasn’t something he did. Trying to make something happen with Gerard was scary. It might ruin everything. But he was tired of doing the safe thing. Why not be a little dangerous? Why not kiss a boy? Frank locked his eyes onto Gerard who looked up as if on cue. His eyes were confused and hesitant but this time they weren’t looking away. Ray and Mikey looked at each other with equal amounts of mystification.

            “Gerard?” Ray asked.

            “Huh?” he looked up from the intense gaze he was holding with Frank.

            “What do you think?”

             Gerard looked down at his hands, which were still holding the dice. He rolled, let out a huge breath, and then looked up with a maniac grin.

            “So, Ray Toro, man with the plan, what’re we gonna do?”

***

             The four of them plotted long through the afternoon and into the night. They even enlisted the help of Bob. As it turned out, Ray really was the man with the plan as he had a long detailed list of ideas. Despite his previous hesitation, Gerard was starting to really love the idea. “Those fuckers can meet their makers!” he declared.

             By the end of the day, Gerard had officially taken over the operation with Ray as the mastermind and Mikey with official veto power. He assumed that Frank added something to the undertaking as well, but he was too busy pretending that he didn’t exist, so he therefore would have no reason to be wholly consumed by embarrassment. His powers of subtlety must have been pretty good too, considering no one had brought it up yet. _Was Frank looking at him? Should he look at Frank? He was a bad kisser, wasn’t he?_

             It wasn’t like it would be expected that Gerard would be a good kisser. The only other time he had ever kissed anybody was Yolanda Wang, a quiet Asian girl in eighth grade and a couple drunken make outs with some friend of a friend named Bert (which may or may not have led to more, it was a really confusing night.) All of those events could only be described as, well… wet. Up until that afternoon in the bathroom, Gerard had never  _really_  kissed another person.

             Ray finally got up around dinnertime when he had to go. “Well, I think today’s meeting was successful,” he declared in an official voice. He and Gerard shared a look of barely contained glee. “This is so much fun!” he practically squealed.

            “I know!” Gerard squawked back, sitting up quickly. His eyes caught Frank, the only one out of the four of them who he still cared about appearing at least somewhat cool to. He cleared his throat then lay back down on the bed. He closed his eyes and envisioned himself victoriously triumphing over everyone who had ever given him shit. Gerard was so lost in his daydreams that he didn’t realize that Mikey and Ray had left the room until he felt the bed sink down next to him where Frank had sat down.

            “Hey.”

             Gerard sat up so fast that he saw spots. “Agh,” he moaned and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.

            “Hey,” he answered, peering at the boy next to him through his fingers. None of the boys had bothered to turn on a lamp and the natural light was fading quickly. Frank’s hair was gelled into sort of slick spikes in the back, a style that can be attributed to Mikey who had convinced Frank to let him style his hair. It actually looked pretty good.  _Really_  good. But Gerard had no time to dwell on the fact that Frank looked good at the moment. In fact, he was trying in all honesty to repress that because he was bracing himself for the inevitable let down. He folded his hands in his lap and stared down pointedly at them.

             He knew that he wasn’t really Frank’s type anyways. Frank’s type was probably ridiculously attractive and funny and not morbidly depressed alcoholics. He would let him down easy because Frank was a Nice Guy unlike Gerard who was self-centered and had never had to let down anyone before in his life. He bet Frank had to let down hopefuls all the time.

            “Why do you look so sad?” Frank asked. Gerard had never heard a more painfully concerned voice in his life. He turned his head to his friend’s eyes reflecting the little light left in the room _. God, Frank, why do you have to be all wonderful when I’m trying to accept the fact that you don’t like me,_  he thought bitterly.

            “I’m always sad,” Gerard answered. It was true.

            “Yeah, you did seem sad… today in the bathroom… and stuff,” Frank began.

            “Yeah?” he asked, letting himself hope for just one second that maybe he wasn’t horribly wrong about Frank.

            “About that…” the other boy started. And there it was.

            “You know what? It’s totally fine. I’m serious, we can just pretend like it never happened or whatever.”

            “Why… why would I do that?” Frank asked in a tiny voice.

            “Because you don’t like me,” Gerard answered. Why was he drawing this out more than he should?

            “I like you!” Frank exclaimed in complete and utter shock. Directly after his declaration, he turned a beautiful shade of pink.

            “Then, then why’d you run out of the bathroom?” Gerard asked.

             Frank stared at him. His body was perked up and wide open, unlike Gerard who was hunched over and had his arms folded around himself. They were clearly on two very different pages. Hell, they were probably in two different books.

            “You can be so stupid, you know that?” Frank said. “I was  _confused._  And then you wouldn’t even  _look_  at me all afternoon–“

            “You were the one who wasn’t looking at me!” Gerard interjected. They both glared at each other, exasperated for a moment before breaking out into ridiculous, not at all appropriate fits of laughter.

            “This is not funny,” Gerard gasped in between laughs.

            “Not at all,” Frank agreed.

             While their fits of laughter had been going on, the two boys had mysteriously gravitated towards each other, so by the time their laughs died down their heads were resting together but neither was quite looking at the other. This time, Gerard gathered up all the few shreds of courage he had and kissed Frank.

             The younger boy leaned into Gerard who gladly wrapped his arms around the boy’s slim middle. Frank was still in his uniform and the material was rough but he was so hot beneath it. Gerard let his hands rub along his sides and over his back. Frank gladly leaned into the touch. Frank then fisted a bunch of Gerard’s hair in one hand and slipped his tongue unexpectedly into his mouth, deepening the kiss. Gerard’s stomach practically dropped into his feet. He loved the little gasping noises Frank made when they broke apart for air.

             The music they had left on pulsed in the background, the only other noise besides the ringing in their ears. The steady thrum of Frank’s heartbeat pulsed against Gerard’s. He groaned in the back of his throat as Frank dipped his head and placed just one kiss on his neck. The lead singer sang on as his hands moved to the sides of Frank’s face and traced the outline of his jaw. It all felt so good and wow, seriously this was awesome, he could do this forever, until his thoughts got in the way.

            “What about your parents?” he asked in one big long rushed sentence in between kisses. Frank stopped abruptly.

            “Oh.”

            “Oh.”

             Frank was quiet for a bit, but he let his hands continue moving while he thought. First they twisted around a lock of his hair, (Seriously, he was first human who wasn’t actually grossed out by Gerard’s hair! Frank was so cool) then on the back of his neck so shivers ran down his spine, and then finally to his shoulder.

            “I don’t care,” he finally concluded. Frank’s voice sounded like he was saying words that he didn’t know even existed. “I. Don’t. Care.” He giggled boyishly. That really shouldn’t have been adorable to Gerard but it was. “Cool!” He then promptly launched himself at Gerard again.

***

             Her name was shooting through his mind again in a thousand multicolored sparkly little lights. Not pink lights though. She hated pink.

             Mikey plodded his way around his room, daydreaming about her as usual. Nothing to do, nothing to do… what a typical teenage crisis. He would have to look into getting the fabric of his life altered. His phone buzzed on the nightstand by the bunk bed he had slept in ever since he was four. The dull light read her name and, just in the private of his room, he cracked a smile out of the corner of his mouth.

              _found the bass line 2 sweet child o mine :) 2morrow same time?_

              _rad,_ he typed back then erased it.  _sounds good,_ he tried but that just made him sound like his dad.  _you’re the coolest girl ever and i love your voice and your smile and especially your eyes and your fingers are beautiful to me when you play bass can’t wait to see u then._ Definitely not.  _sounds cool or whatever_ , he eventually wrote down then pressed send quickly.

              _ha ur so full of shit mikeyway_ , she sent back.

              _counting the hours xx_ , Mikey replied.

_much better xx_

            He sat there like a doofus for a couple of seconds, just reveling in their five line conversation until he realized that he would actually have to do something at some point. Playing bass was a better option than doing actual schoolwork he decided, so with that, Mikey made his way downstairs and then into the basement. Oh, it was dark. He carefully took the two steps across the room to reach the light and flicked it on.

             _Oh._  It appeared that he had walked in on something. Gerard and Frank were sitting on the bed together, Gerard’s hand up the younger one’s shirt with Frank kneeled over him, a long strip of skin above his hips visible. They hovered a couple of inches away from each other awkwardly and stared at the intruder. Mikey’s brother was dramatically reddening like he did when he got embarrassed. He had been standing there for a couple of seconds now. He should probably say something. Yes, saying something would be a good idea. A couple more seconds passed.

            “Oh,” he said. He then grabbed his bass and flicked off the light again. On his way out of the door, he tripped over a stack of comics, but he didn’t think Gerard would have minded all that much right then. Once he had finally shut the door as a precaution so their parents wouldn’t walk in on his older brother, he let out a deep breath.

              _Okay then_.

***

Chapter 8: In Which Phase One Is Set Into Motion 

           “So Bob,” Frank began. They were in his room, pissing the time away together. Frank felt like it had been eons since they last talked when in reality it was only a week. That probably had something to do with all the wild events that had led up to that moment in time: the kiss in the bathroom to DND to revenge to making out on Gerard’s bed. Frank had spent almost an hour and a half recounting the events to Bob in great detail and embellishment. Bob remained unimpressed. Frank knew that Bob was happy for him though. Deep down beneath his deadpanned eyes and lip ring. Deep, deep down. The only detail that Frank had managed to omit was the fact that to execute their devious schemes, they would need help from him. He could already tell that the persuasion process was going to be a difficult one.

            “About our whole plan….” He gave Bob a very meaningful look.

            “Yeah?”

            “There’s a lot of them… and not that many of us….” Another meaningful look.

            “Yeah?”

            Bob was so stupid.

            “It’d be really helpful to have a certain  _dashingly handsome blonde friend_ on our side.” Frank nudged Bob in the side and gave him a little wink-wink.

            “Oh  _hell_ no.”

            “Please, please, please, please, please, please, fuckity,  _pleeeeeease_!”

            “No.”

            “But we need you!”

            “No you don’t.”

            Frank gave him his biggest, most innocent puppy dog look, which he had to admit was pretty good. In fact, it was really fucking good. Bob cringed in resistance to the cute, but Frank knew he wouldn’t last for long. And, right at that very moment, opportunity struck as his little pug Tula waddled by. Frank immediately picked her up, held her under his chin, and resumed his sad eyed antics. Bob glanced warily at the combination of needy punk boy, rolls of pug fat, and two gigantic pairs of eyes. He gave in.

            “Fine, fine! I surrender. Put the dog down,” Bob said, admitting defeat. Frank grinned and helped Tula give him a high five. “So, what do I have to do?”

            “Can you drop by after school? Then we can let the mischief begin.” Frank felt it would be very appropriate if his last sentence were punctuated by an evil cackle.

***

            “Batmen to Robins, Batmen to Robins. Come in Robins?”

            “Why do  _we_  have to be the Robins?” Frank’s voice crackled across the plastic device’s intercom. Leave it to the Way brothers to still have a functioning set of walkie-talkies.

            “Well, what do you want to be? The Alfreds?”

            “I don’t know, something  _cool_ ,” Frank whined.

            “Like The Jokers,” Mikey intoned.

            “You can’t be the Jokers!” It was Ray.

            “Why not?”

            “Because the Joker was the  _bad guy_ ,” Ray sighed.

            “Do you wanna be the Supermen?” Gerard asked.

            “God, no,” Frank shuddered.

            “Fine, Vampires to Zombies. Are you in position?”

            “Yeah, we’re good.”

            “Okay, entering Step 1 of the plan.”

            Bob turned to Frank and Mikey.

            “You guys are such idiots.”

            “We should keep count of how many times Bob stakes claim to our idiocy,” Mikey suggested.

            “Get a nickel every time,” Frank included.

            “And become fucking millionaires,” Mikey finished.

            “Idiot millionaires,” Bob muttered. He handed Mikey a plastic bag filled with cylindrical orange tubes. Frank unlocked the locker in front of them using a key he had acquired from the school’s lovable if unfortunately daft janitor. He was completely devoted to coming to school every day without fail in a shirt, tie, and white lab coat for one thing. The second thing was that it appeared he was having some sort of illicit relationship with the school’s vice principal, Ms. Barner. It was really badly disguised. And also, by general consensus, really gross. Either way, in the first two weeks Frank had attended Sacred Heart, during lunch he developed somewhat of a friendly relationship with the staff member, allowing him no-questions-asked access to anything the janitor was in charge of. Including all the keys to the school’s lockers.

            “How did you even manage to fake the labels? That’s some fucking dedication,” Bob admired.

            “I know a guy,” Mikey shrugged.

            “They all in?” Ray asked through the walkie-talkie. The Vampire team, Gerard and Ray, was out by the entrance of the building, keeping guard in case anyone walked in on the Zombie team, which was comprised of Frank, Mikey, and the ever-pessimistic Bob.

            “Almost,” Frank answered. The three of them shoved the bottles haphazardly into the locker, shutting it quickly so none could slide out. “Done.”

            “Get out of there, Sister Margret at one o’clock,” Ray intoned.

            “Where the fuck is one o’clock?” Bob replied.

            “Just get the hell out of there,” Gerard said.

            The three friends ran down the hallway and out the door to the front steps. Gerard and Ray were sitting on the low cement walls casually, passing a cigarette back and forth.

             The days were getting chillier and chillier as they progressed further into November. Frank’s birthday had passed without much event because he had to drive down to visit his extended family. He went through the mandatory smile, handshake, questions about school and church spiel without too much of a mental breakdown, though it was painfully obvious that everyone seemed to be avoiding the topic of if he had a “girlfriend”. The day when they returned, Frank inexcusably lied and said he was hanging out with Bob when in fact he spent the day with Gerard.

             First, they went to the art store and wasted a lot of time writing obscene things in pastels on the test paper. After that, they decided to check out the lake near Ray’s house, which was supposed to be haunted as fuck. It wasn’t as creepy as they hoped, just sort of trashy and forgotten, but there were some nice benches to sit on (and trees for Frank to attempt to climb then fall out of). He even played some guitar for Gerard who listened peacefully and looked at him like the sun looks at the moon. And lots of other ridiculously shmoozy similes Frank had invented while he practiced looking dreamy and edgy at the same time in the bathroom mirror into the wee hours of the night.

             At the current moment, it was technically croquet practice, but Gerard sacrificed his duty to the “team” for their newfound cause. The circumstances were ideal as everyone else still at school was out practicing their cheer routines and whatnot, so the five of them seized the opportunity to execute the early stages of Phase One of their scheme. As Bob mentioned before, they went all out in their plans. This was mostly due to Gerard who was not known for half-assing things when he got into them.

            “So what do we do now?” Mikey asked.

            “We wait until tomorrow morning,” Gerard answered.

            “I don’t get to see all the hard work go into action?” Bob complained.

            “Nope, tough love for you,” Frank said and stuck out his tongue. He snuggled up next to Gerard and wrapped his arms around his middle.

            “Whatever. Tell me how hugely it fucks up… idiot.”

***

             Morning. The four of them were comically peering around the corner, waiting for their first victim to enter the premises. Each took a tentative sip from the coffee cup before passing it to the next friend. If they were being ridiculous and conspicuous, no one said anything or gave them weird looks. Clearly, they were only worthy of those when they were minding their own business.

             At 7:41, Vince entered the hallway. He was alone for once, looking quite less intimidating when he wasn’t flanking one of Nick’s sides. They exchanged glances as he quickly put in his combination and flung open the door. Orange prescription bottles spilled all over the floor, clanking against the linoleum floor. A couple of obnoxious noisy girls gasped dramatically like they were in their own personal soap opera while their boyfriends all looked a bit stricken. Vince looked down at all the spilled bottles angrily, and he only seemed to realize that a fair bit of the hallway was staring at him when a freshman declared, “Oh my God!”

            “They’re not mine,” he attested. “They’re not mine! Who put these in here?”

             By this time, of course, the four friends had escaped the scene of the crime so their bouts of hysterical laughter seemed perfectly innocent. Frank buried his head into Gerard’s shoulder as he cackled while to his right Mikey had a hand covering most of his face as he snickered, and Ray was bent over in his fit of giggles.

             Phase One of the plan was the most detailed of the three phases they were to execute. As Mikey previously mentioned, he knew someone who could crank out a pretty decent fake label for the pills. Not enough to actually incriminate him seriously, but enough to give them all a really good scare. The five of them had even spent one full afternoon stuffing tic tacs into the bottles. Additionally, due to the huge excess of leftover tic tacs, each one of them was largely better at catching small objects in their mouths.

            “Did you see his face?” gasped Gerard eventually.

            “Priceless,” Mikey agreed.

            “’They’re not mine!’” Ray mimicked.

            “High fives for all!” Frank declared. Gerard did an epic slow motion swing with Ray and Mikey stuck up his hand to join them. To top of the sundae of rebellious teenagers, Frank jumped up and smacked the tops of their hands, making explosion sound effects. Then, after glancing around surreptitiously a couple of times to make sure no one was watching them, pecked Gerard’s lips for just a moment. Gerard blinked twice at him then asked the rest of the group, “Lunch?”

            “Lunch,” they all agreed and set off to the same monotonous tasks but with their silent victory burning like a fire in their chests.

***

             Ray sighed. Mikey gave him a pat on the shoulder while both Frank and Gerard looked at each other with bewildered expressions.

            “Dude, why are you sad? We just pulled the best prank of the year!” Frank said. Gerard nodded enthusiastically. Mikey gave them both a look.

            “What?” Gerard shrugged. Ray continued to gaze into space with a mixture of despondency and longing.

            “Guys,” Mikey said and gestured pointedly to Ray. Each of them took turns observing their friend and then in the direction he was staring. Gerard shook his head.

            “All I see is a table of assholes,” he rationalized. Mikey demonstrated a five star face palm.

            “It’s  _her_ ,” Ray moaned.

            “Who?”

             Mikey furtively guided their gaze towards the girl Ray had been staring at. She was pretty in a secret kind of way. Very pale and dirty blonde hair, she had evenly proportioned features and dark circles under her eyes. Smaller details about her made her all the more interesting though, the sort of stuff only a person like Ray would really ever notice. How she had the front of her sleek ponytail badly crimped. How intensely she stared at people, especially those who weren’t talking.

            “Oh yeah she’s uhh… hot. Yeah, smokin’. She is fiiiine,” Frank tried.

            “Totally… sexy?” Gerard said, but it came out more like a question.

             Ray gave them each playful punches. “It’s only funny because of how ridiculously gay you two are,” he said with a weak smile.

            “Oh yeah, we’re just flaming the fuck out over here!” Frank laughed. Mikey snickered and Ray managed a feeble laugh. However, he grimaced when he looked back just in time to see Nick rest an arm cockily over her shoulders. The girl didn’t seem to be engaged in whatever conversation was going on, just smiling and laughing at the right parts and looking away at the other parts.

            “Can’t believe that fucktard. Acting like she’s his own property. That self-centered, entitled, patronizing– “

            “Ray, cool it,” Mikey cut in.

             Ray thrust his lunch down dejectedly. “She’s the girl from the record store,” he sighed. “The one that buys Iron Maiden all the time.”

            “Ooooh,” Frank said in recognition. “ _That_  one.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Yeah.”

             There was an awkward pause.

            “She’ll break up with that dickhead soon enough,” Gerard assured Ray.

            “Uh huh, any fan of Iron Maiden is smart enough to realize that he’s…” Frank struggled with words to sum up the repulsiveness that was Nick Vanderlin’s existence. “Him,” he concluded expressively.

            “We always could… speed up the process,” Mikey said ominously.

            “Mikey the Matchmaker?” Gerard quipped.

            “It’s got a certain ring to it,” Frank agreed.

            “Well, I can’t do it,” Mikey rejected.

            “Why not?” Gerard asked. “You’re a catch,” he said, punctuated with a creepy eyebrow wiggle.

            “The plan would be to break them up through seduction, right?”

            “It is?”

            “Yes. So she’s going to cling onto the first straight guy she sees,” Mikey pointed out. “No offense,” he said to Ray.

            “It’s all good,” Ray replied.

             Both of them then turned to Gerard and Frank.

            “Don’t look at me!” Gerard yelped.

            “We weren’t, dumbass,” Mikey said. Gerard slowly turned his head to Frank. The youngest of the friends sat there quite calmly, blinked once, and then said, “Sure.”

            “Sure?” Gerard asked. Frank squeezed Gerard’s hand, which he had been holding the whole time discreetly.

            “Why not? Anything for my buddy, Ray.” Ray smiled weakly.

***

             Frank stood nervously in the hallway, trying to work up somewhat of a normal, likeable nature. He straightened his tie, spiked up his hair in the back ( _Mikey had finally gotten to me_ , he thought), and stepped inside the locker room. Because their school was weird, there was an area in between the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms so social human beings can do whatever it is that they do together. It was there that Frank had secretly followed Krista for his impromptu matchmaking. This could be a valuable life’s still. He could even make a living off of this. Frank was, of course, getting ahead of himself, as he wasn’t even sure if he was any good at this whole ‘high school existence changing revelation through seduction’. But he would try.  _For friendship and love!_  was his valiant war cry in his head.

              _Okay, Frank. Are you ready? No going back now. We can do this. Think sensitive. Think sexy. Thing straight. Huzzah!_

             Frank burst into the locker room to find a mildly tearful Krista.  _Oh shit. What is with me and walking in on people crying?_

            “Oh, hello,” she said. Krista smoothed her small pale hands over her face unmarred by her few tears. She pulled off her headphones but left the music playing. Frank recognized the song as “Purgatory” by none other than Iron Maiden. He wondered what to say first.

            “This is a good song,” he finally said.

            “What? Oh!” Krista clicked off the cassette player, so the faint tinny sound no longer issued from the white headphones.

            “They’re a good band. I didn’t know that cheerleaders knew much heavy metal,” Frank joked. Friendly. Friendly is good.

            “Oh, well, I think it’s just me, really. Don’t tell anyone!”

            “Sure thing.”

            “It’s just that they’re not really into that stuff and–“

            “It’s okay, I got it.” Frank smiled reassuringly.

            “Thank you. I don’t know if you know how things are with girls but… well.”

             “No I get it. You’re not them but you want them to like you because they’re supposed to like you, right? So, we just keep it a secret. Got it.”

            “Well, it’s not just like the way you said it…”

             Frank sat down and rifled peeked into her backpack. Along with Iron Maiden’s Killers, she had the Cure’s Head on the Door and the first Violent Femmes album. “This is pretty cool. I think you’d get along with my friends well.”

            “Your friends?” There was obvious judgment in her voice, but it wasn’t mean. “I don’t know… they’re kind of scary,” she amended in an embarrassed tone. Frank actually snorted. He couldn’t help it. That was perhaps the single funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. “What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?”

            “ _My_  friends?  _Scary_?” Frank composed himself eventually enough to explain. “See that’s the thing. No one’s got any idea who  _we_  are. Take Ray for example. He seems like a total nerd, right?”

            “Not a tota – “

            “You should see him shred on guitar! His hair literally vibrates from the awesome!”

            “Oh, is that true?”

            “Well… not actually, but he’s pretty much a god on guitar.”

            “Oh… well what about your other friends?”

            “They’re all normal guys too! No one ever gives them a chance… just like they never gave you a chance.”

             Krista opened her mouth to say something, but Frank cut in before.

            “If your friends are so great, then why were you crying?” It was a gamble. Krista really could have been crying about anything: grades, family, all that spiel. Then Frank might have come off as an insensitive dick just like the rest of them. But, he was willing to take the risk for Ray.

            “Yeah,” she breathed instead. They sat in silence for a beat. Frank admired how straight up she was about all the little things in the conversation. She knew what she was saying. He knew it that took a lot of guts, even if she was still hiding. He looked at her. Here goes nothing.

            “You know, you have something in your eye,” he said and carefully leaned forward as not to freak her out. There was an eyelash right below her – wait whoa! Why did she close her eyes? Why is she leaning in? WHAT THE FUCK?

             As fast as Frank could, he picked the eyelash away from her face and then walked off. “See you around,” he threw over his shoulder while shuffling out.

             Outside the locker room, he found his three friends clustered conspicuously outside, Ray with his ear pressed dramatically against the door.

            “Do we have soundproof walls here or what?” he protested.

            “Walk!” Frank hissed. They all scurried away from the door in fear that Krista would come out and discover them.

            “So what’s she like?” Mikey was the first to ask in deep compassion for Ray’s patience or lack thereof.

            “Nice, blonde, a little brainwashed but has potential.” Frank paused to think for a second. “Says ‘oh’ a lot.”

             Despite Frank’s epic sacrifice he had just made, he couldn’t find it anywhere in his heart to pointedly act like a martyr at the sight of Ray’s face. If normally his face was bright like the sun, this smile could actually set the world on fire.

            “See you guys after school?” Frank asked Ray and Mikey before their next class.

            “Yeah, right.” Mikey shuffled off, but Ray remained for a second.

            “Hey man, I just really wanted to say – “

            “It’s no problem, Ray,” Frank assured him.

            “No  _really_  Frank.” Ray put his hands on Frank’s shoulders. “ _Thank you_.”

            “You’re welcome, dude,” Frank said playfully. “Now get outta here.” Ray floated away, still caught up in the reverie of Krista. Frank tried to look inconspicuous while he waited for Gerard to come back from his locker.

            “You been talkin’ to Krista, loser?” Robert, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, asked.

            “Nope, not me, don’t even know who that is.” Frank made a jaunty attempt to dash away.

            “Don’t lie, faggot, we saw you go in there to talk to her. What’d you say?”

             Frank observed the conventionally handsome boy towering over him and realized that he was… well, nervous. Threatened even. Frank had the upper hand! Rejoice to all the Gods of the Teenage Misfit, no matter how unfaithful they had been in the past, and sing the praises in the underground club because Frank had the upper hand! He did a little victory lap for the adoring, fist-pumping crowd for the day had come! _I would like to thank Glen Danzig, Neil Gaiman, the guy who invented pizza, my awesome friends and my gorgeous boyfriend for giving me this opportunity to topple the echelon of high school politics. Rock on, bitches!_

             Once Frank was finished with his victory montage in his head, he realized he still had to answer Robert. Oh shit.

            “That information is to remain undisclosed,” he answered smartly.

             Robert towered over him menacingly. “That whore just broke up with Nick, and if it was you, we  _will_ make you pay.”

            “I’m trembling with fear,” he answered sarcastically.

            “God, shut  _up_ ,” Robert moaned. He then proceeded to yank open the nearest locker and push Frank in it.

            “Hey! What the hell, man? Let me out of here!” Frank yelled. Slam! Everything around him went very dark. The only source of light was the three long slits of light at just around eye level. Frank’s neck was craned at an awkward angle that was going to ache like a bitch if he was in there for too long. In a total of about 10 seconds he had gone from gleeful pride to the inside of a locker. Great.

             Frank sat in there for what seemed like  _foreeeeeever_. But that was probably just the fact that his attention and energy levels had never really surpassed that of an ADHD 8-year-old’s. A brief catalogue of his time in the locker:

-       Hyperventilating over how small the space was

-       Telling himself to relax

-       Practicing guitar chords

-       Hyperventilating again

-       Recalling all his friends’ middle names (and making it his mission to discover Ray’s)

-       Banging his head against the locker door

-       Trying to itch his nose with both is hands pinned against his sides

-       Deciding he should learn how to whistle

-       Trying once, failing, then giving up on a bright future career of whistling

-       Panicking that he would be stuck in the locker forever and die in there.

            At that thought, he heard a click and the locker opened to reveal a smiling and unassuming girl with caramel colored hair pulled back into a ponytail.

            “Ahh!” he yelled at her as he jumped back out of the locker and into the now blinding light. The girl squealed and scurried away as fast as possible. Straightening his tie, Frank cast a couple sideways looks to see if anyone really noticed. They hadn’t. Well, that is except for Gerard who had been mid-step and was now staring at him suspiciously. Frank just shrugged.

            “I got shoved in a locker, what else was I supposed to do?” The older boy just laughed while wrapping an arm around Frank’s shoulder then burying his face in the top of Frank’s head.

            “You,” Gerard said, “are crazy,” and he kissed the top of Frank’s head just once. They sat like that for a beat until Frank suddenly jumped back.

            “I just remembered something!” he declared. “What’s Ray’s middle name?”

***

 Chapter 10: In Which Urinary Functions Are Used As Weapons

            “Phase Two of Mission Revenge. Coast appears to be clear for now and – “

            “Again with the narration?”

            “Come on, dude! It’s fun!”

            “It’s gonna get us fucking caught.”

            “Can I pee already or what?”

            The boy’s locker room smelled like shit.

            “It smells fucking awful in here,” Frank complained. Gerard wriggled his nose a bit then shrugged.

            “Hang on, guys. I’m almost done.” Ray was bent over three lockers in the bottom row. He was using a couple bent up paper clips to try to pick the locks.

            “I really need to pee,” Mikey said, kind of rocking back and forth on the bench in the middle of the room with his legs crossed.

            “This one’s really stubborn,” Ray said as he vigorously jimmied the paper clip into the lock.

            “I can’t believe you can’t smell that, Gerard. It’s like I’m standing inside Nick Vanderlin’s jockstrap.”

            “Gross, gross,  _gross_!” Gerard yelled covering his eyes like that would eliminate the mental image.

            “I don’t think you guys understand how much liquid I’ve consumed over the past twenty-four hours,” Mikey said. “… Like… a lot of liquid.”

            “Goddamn, I need a gas mask,” Frank said dramatically.

            “You fucking drama queen,” Gerard smiled and wrapped his arms around Frank’s hips and pulled him in for a quick kiss.

            “If I pee my pants our plan is ruined,” Mikey pointed out.

            “Got it!” Ray announced and he opened the row of lockers. The row that was dedicated to the entire lacrosse team.

            “Oh God, it just got worse,” Frank groaned, and he clapped his hands over his nose.

            “Okay Mikey, Gerard. It’s all you,” Ray said, stepping back from his hard work. He and Frank turned their backs to the wall while Mikey and Gerard unzipped their jeans.

            “Now I am totally getting avenged for what they did to me on freshman year,” Ray gloated.

            “What’d they do to you in freshman year? I thought they don’t really bother you,” Frank said.

            “Well they don’t really. Not after they found out that Louis was my brother.”

            “But what’d they do?” Frank asked again. Tinkling noises were coming from behind him where Mikey and Gerard were promptly peeing all over the contents of the lockers. Take that, you fuckers!

            “Oh I remember that. Apparently it was some freshman initiation bullshit but they locked him in a bathroom stall and then stole his pants. He had to walk all the way to the principle’s office in these really horrifying tighty whiteys,” Gerard explained. “Good times.”

            “You two almost fini–“ Frank began but he cut himself when he turned around and saw Brian Schechter staring open mouthed in the doorway at Mikey and Gerard.

            In Frank’s first two weeks at Sacred Heart, Mikey had mentioned Brian a couple of times. Elena knew his family so he and Gerard vaguely knew the guy, Mikey told him. Brian was the school’s mascot, which was like some stupid smiley dog. Brian was essentially just that. He was always trailing the lacrosse dudes or anyone who had the slightest bit of credibility with the “popular crowd” in the goddamn school like some sick puppy. Looking for a way in.  _Any_  way in.

            Brian made a bolt for the door, but Ray was faster and blocked his path.

            “Hey Brian, man. What’s up?” he said nervously with his arms spread out in front of the door dramatically.

            “Nothing, I just gotta.” Brian tried to sidestep Ray but Ray moved right with him. They were both fidgeting like 8-year-olds with ADHD or people caught in a situation doing something they shouldn’t. “Just gotta get through, Toro.”

            “Hey, but uhh. Ahh umm, you know what the thing is though,” Ray tried.

            “We’re just, like, fuckin’ around. You know, man,” Frank supplied. He walked over to the two in their stalemate by the door and clapped a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You don’t need to like  _tell_  anyone about this.”

            “But… but you guys were – “

            “Doing absolutely nothing,” Frank finished for him. Brian looked helplessly from Frank to the Way brothers sheepishly standing half obscured by a row of lockers with their pants hastily pulled up and finally to Ray who had finally dropped his arms but was still obstructing his path. Brian looked so small and confused, a look that Frank realized he had probably worn a hundred times before he was about to get beaten up. A sudden wave of guilt hit him. “Let him past,” he said. When Ray didn’t move, Frank repeated a little louder, “Let him past, dude.” Brian bolted out the door as fast as he could, and they heard his footsteps echo down the empty hallway until he was too far away to be heard.

            “Fuck,” Gerard swore.

            “Don’t panic, guys,” Ray supplied nervously, running his hands through his massive hair. “Don’t panic, don’t panic. He might… he might not tell them.”

            “He might not… ha ha he might not fucking hell Ray!” Gerard swore. Frank inched over and took Gerard’s hand. Gerard looked at him with frustration and fear in his eyes. Frank squeezed his hand reassuringly and rubbed his thumb over the skin in between his thumb and first finger.

            “There’s a nerve there or something,” Frank answered, a random fact he was sure his mom had told him once.

            “What the hell are we gonna do, guys?” Gerard asked.

            “He might… he might not like tell anyone maybe?” Ray said hopefully again.

            “Don’t be fucking – “ Gerard started but Frank buried his head into his shoulder. “Yeah… yeah maybe not.”

            “Like, what else can we do?” Frank added.

            “Can you all turn around because I wasn’t like… done?” Mikey asked softly. Frank giggled half-heartedly and obliged.

***

            Gerard scoped out the lawn very precisely before carefully smacking the ball with his mallet. It was after school, the sun out despite the cold early January air. Frank and Mikey were chatting off a couple yards away while Ray stood nicely near Gerard at least pretending he was interested in playing croquet. Gerard didn’t really care. There was something very comforting about pretending the balls were Nick Vanderlin’s head and smacking them through the next gateway to hell. It helped relax him, especially after the whole Brian ordeal two days ago.

            Brian didn’t end up telling the dreaded foes at lunch that day or even the next. They knew this for a fact because they forced Mikey into stalking him just in case. It was a necessary precaution! Four poor little teenage boys’ lives were at stake here and nothing could be left to chance.

            Fuck. If the lacrosse guys found out, they were so screwed. Like,  _screwed_ screwed. Like  _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_  screwed. Hiding in a little shack with the entire fucking Mexican police force pointing their rifles at them or whatever (he hadn’t payed too much attention when he was watching the movie.) Monumentally fucked. Impaled on the Washington Monument fucked. Okay, he needed to stop coming up with metaphors. They were setting him on edge again. Just smack the ball through the wicket and…

            Gerard shielded his eyes from the wintery sun to survey the lawn.

            “Way!” came a voice and then an entire body launched at him, so fast that Gerard didn’t even have time to react. The next thing he knew there was a voice in his ear going, “We’re going to get you. You won’t know where, you won’t know when, but we’re going to get you fuckers.” Then the dead weight was lifted off of him as quickly as it had come, and Gerard rolled onto his other side to see Robert Handler’s figure run off back towards the school. Oh hell, hell, hell, fire burning him while he was being hanged by his own intestines in fucking hell.

            “Uhh… do you think they know?” Ray asked timidly.

            “Fuck! Fucking fuck!” Gerard swore. He was too afraid and angry to even come up with a satisfactorily creative curse. His pulse was picking up and he tugged at the ends of his hair furiously. Oh God, were they watching him right now? No, okay, okay, okay FUCK NO. Gerard’s breaths were erratic and he had the insane urge to kick something, but the only things that were around were their croquet stuff. He kicked over one of the hoops in the ground. When that didn’t do it for him, he grabbed the ball closest to his feet and hurled it as hard as he could in a random direction, but he had a shit arm and fell pathetically short. “Fuck.”

            “Should we start writing our suicide notes now or…?” Frank asked sarcastically.

            “Now… it’s probably, not, like… probably. Not as bad as, uh, they make it seem, guys. Don’t,” Ray cleared his throat, “Don’t overreact yet.” It was the least sure Gerard had ever heard Ray sound.

            “They’re going to eat me alive,” Frank said. “No. They’re going to beat me to a pulp and then fry me over a fire on a spit so my  _parents_  can eat me alive.”

            “Fuck fuck fuck,” Gerard kept chanting.

            “Seriously, guys. Stop freaking out. Stop it! Just, like, hang on. Stop! Oh God.” Ray was vainly trying to console the others while he himself began to freak out as well.

            “Brian.” Gerard, Ray, and Frank all turned to look at Mikey who was leaning against a croquet mallet all casual in stance, but looking freakishly intimidating for Mikeyway. Which was to say on some par of a B-class super villain in blue dress pants. Gerard knew him well enough though to see the squint in his eyes that read as SEVERELY PISSED OFF SKINNY FREAK OUT FOR BLOOD.

            “What about Br–“ Ray began then let out a comically large, “Oh! Brian.”

            “Brian! Fucking hell I swear I will, I will, I will…” He struggled to form a coherent sentence. Gerard looked at Mikey, who understood.

            “Cheerleading practice,” Mikey answered and Gerard was off, storming across the lawn towards the mascot practicing alongside a row of peppy blonde girls. Why is it that  _all_  cheerleaders were blonde? Gerard vaguely recognized Krista, the girl Ray liked among them. The closer he got to them, the angrier he got at fucking Brian and the more he sped up until he was going at the kid at full speed. Fuck Brian, telling the fucking lacrosse team for his own personal fucking gain to get on their good side. Gerard didn’t even know what he was going to do until he was twenty yards away from the Brian in the stupid fucking dog suit.

            “ _I will pee on everything you love!”_  Gerard yelled before launching himself straight at Brian. He kind of shot himself off at a weird angle, though, and only caused Brian to be knocked a little off balance while Gerard came crashing down to the ground for the second time in like two minutes. Thankfully, Ray and Frank had his back, taking down Brian from either side. Mikey sauntered in, still in full super villain mode and aimed a kick right at Brian’s mascot-y head.  _KO,_  Gerard thought.

            “You were wrong to fuck with us, asshole,” Mikey said, all suave and intense like he was the motherfucking Godfather or something. Who knew he had it in him? Frank hocked a wad of spit at Brian’s feet after he dusted himself off then threw his arms around Gerard’s waist as they all walked away.

            “Feel better now?” Mikey asked Gerard.

            “Yeah.”           

            “We’re still motherfucking dead,” Mikey noted.

            “I know.”

***

Chapter 11: In Which They Disrupt Biology Class Among Other Things 

            “Mikey, you have to go to school,” her voice said from the other end of the line. Her voice was roughish and warm over the phone. Of course she was making fun of him. It’s not like she understood because all the girls at her school thought she was some sort of witch that would turn them into a toad if they fucked with her.

            “No I don’t. If I go then I’ll have to pretend that I’m not freaked so Gerard doesn’t, like, die before they even have a go at us.” Mikey punctuated this with a sigh.

            “’Have a go at you’?” she laughed.

            Mikey laughed awkwardly, not quite sure why she found him funny. Pause. “Oh, uhh indeed,” he tried. His British accent was so much better when he was drunk.

            “Seriously, what’s the worst they could do?”

            “Castrate us,” he answered quickly, then placed a protect hand over his crotch area. Ouch.

            “They’re not going to – “

            “Do you want to hear Gerard’s theories?”

            “The combination of homicidal 80’s teen movie villains and Dario Argento films are doing bad things to your minds.”

            “I’m not going to school.” Mikey’s voice squeaked embarrassingly.

            “They might wait it out a while,” she offered.

            “More anxiety.”

            “It might be nice to get it over with?”           

            “Death.”

            “Wow. You’re feeling  _really_ pessimistic about this.”

            “Yes I am,” Mikey answered. He sighed again.

            “Stop sighing,” she said.

            “Why?”

            “Because I have a good feeling.”

            “Really?”

            “No actually, but I’m bringing you some pot brownies I made last night with Brendon and Ryan.”

            “Which ones are those?” Mikey asked, rubbing his eye underneath his thin framed glasses.

            “Gay guys in the apartment above us that are really loud during sex.”

            “Right. Do they make good pot brownies?”

            “Fuckin’ wicked.”

            Mikey heard a loud fumble from coming from the basement. What had Gerard done now?

            “Hey, I’ve got to go. Gerard may or may not be attempting to… impale himself out of desperation.” He paused. “I miss you.”           

            “Me too. See you soon, Mikey.” He still never got over the way she said his name.

            “Gerard!” he called. “We gotta go.” He made a silent bet with himself on how long it would take to persuade Gerard to come. Mikey stalked down the stairs, and he was about to delve into the basement when Frank emerged with Gerard in tow. Their hands were clasped tight enough that it would probably take a chainsaw to rip them apart. They were even sharing a cup of coffee.

            “It’s okay, Mikey. We’re good, right?” Frank turned to Gerard and leaned his forehead into his jawbone briefly.

            “Yeah. I’m good.” Gerard was looking at Frank like he was made of everything beautiful in the world. Mikey had to admit, he felt a little jealous right then and there. And not a pang of jealously but like a slow undercurrent of something whispering ‘ _You’re not part of this’._  And he really, really wasn’t.

            It was like Frank, with his almighty Frank powers of Love and Peace, sensed that when he jumped over and bumped Mikey’s nose affectionately. He poked Mikey in the stomach, where he  _knew_  Mikey was ticklish, causing him to jerk spastically and narrow his eyes at Frank.

            “Look alive, Mikeyway,” he joked.

            “Someone’s happy today,” Mikey noted.

            “I have a good feeling about today,” Frank said.

            “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today,” Mikey mused.

            “Who was the first?” Gerard asked, wrapping his arm around Frank’s waist so their clasped hands were pressed into Frank’s stomach.

            “No one,” Mikey answered quickly, flapping his hand out in a flustered fashion. Gerard and Frank exchanged a smirking look.

            “Elusive as always,” Gerard grinned.

***

            Mikey sped into the science classroom. His hand was still throbbing from accidentally smashing it in a locker, but it didn’t bother him too much. Just around a corner, he turned and saw the vice principal walk busily out of a closet, rubbing her jaw. She was closely followed by the janitor.  _Oh gross oh ew yuck that mental image is going to be burned into my head for the next three years._  Mikey rushed away before either of them saw him.

             He was going to the largest of the three science classrooms because there was some big sciencey nun conference thing where they all probably got together to disprove evolution, and all classes were merging together on some big project. Mikey didn’t care too much (at all), but it meant that both Ray and Gerard were going to be there so at least something good was coming out of it. But as soon as he walked in something was a bit… off.

             Mikey’s whole stomach was flopping like a fish out of water from the walk to Ray who was whirling himself around in a spinning chair.

            “Hey dude,” Mikey tried. Ray kept spinning. “Dude, Ray.” He stopped the chair. Ray scrunched up his face and blinked.

            “Woah-ho cool, man. You’re, like, spinning, dude!”  _Umm what?_

            “Ray, you alright?”

            “Ye-eah!” Mikey took a good long look at his friend. Ray was smiling his usual wide Ray-like smile, but Mikey could easily spot the reddish tinge around his eyes.

            “Ray, are you  _high_ , man?”

            “Nuh-uh.” He sounded like Mikey’s little cousin after he had stolen Gerard’s action figures and didn’t want to admit it.

            “You actually are.”

            “Really? No way, man!” He didn’t sound the least bit concerned. Hysteria was creeping up on Mikey now like water in a slowly rising tide. He whirled around to ask Frank or Gerard what had happened.

            “Gerard, what did you give Ray?” Mikey asked his brother who was slowly poking his tongue out as he leaned his head back. “What in the what are you doing?”

            “Mikes, I am fucking touching my tongue to my nose!” Gerard exclaimed.

            “Everyone settle down,” Sister Abigail called across the class. Mikey hastily sat down in the nearest seat. As she passed back tests to one of the classes Mikey returned to questioning his brother.

            “Gerard, what did you guys take?”

            “I didn’t take shit man,” Gerard giggled loudly. Mikey tried to give him a warning look when people glanced at them suspiciously, but he was sort of really freaking out so all he managed was a spastic eyebrow wiggle. “They were your fucking brownies,” Gerard said.

            “Oh my… why were you in my locker?” Mikey asked.

            “I forgot lunch. Why’d you have fucking pot fucking brownies?”

            “Shh,” Mikey yelped. Sister Abigail was giving them suspicious looks now.

            “Mr. Way, is there something you and your brother wish to share with the rest of the class?” she asked. When Gerard opened his mouth to reply with something Mikey didn’t try to imagine, he placed his hand promptly over his brother’s mouth and answered in his polite voice, “Not at all, Sister.” She continued to instruct the rest of the class, simply accepting to endure their existence. Mikey tried to sit still for a moment and desperately hoped that his friends would keep to themselves. It was… not likely.

            “An F?” Gerard proclaimed, staring at his latest handed back test. “Alright!” he cheered and clapped his hands together. Mikey smacked him in the face. What else was he supposed to do? The whole class tittered.

            “Shut  _up_ , you’re in  _class_ ,” he moaned. With his nerves still racing, Mikey wished intensely that he were invisible. Gerard made mimicking noises in response. Everyone was poking each other and looking at them.

            “Hey, Chicken Legs. What’s wrong, your friends forget their meds this morning?” someone taunted. Mikey just crossed his arms even tighter.

            “I will have silence,” Sister Abigail said. “Thank you.”

            “Ray!” Mikey hissed, catching sight of his friend.  _Why me,_  he cried in his head. _What did I ever do?_  Terror had complete control of him by now.  _Air… lungs… breathe,_  he commanded himself. “Dude, you’re not supposed to do that!” He was referencing the scrawls of RAY ROX completely covering the paper he had been handed.

            “Dude, dude, dude, dude haha.” It was Frank who had miraculously appeared. “I totally dare you to eat that shit.” Ray snorted far too loudly and again Sister Abigail cleared her throat menacingly.

            “Gross!” Ray laughed with complete disregard for the scene he was causing. Ray licked the crayon ( _why in the fucking why does Ray have a crayon_ , Mikey asked himself). He bit down then spit his mouthful back onto the desk. “That’s fucking nasty!” Ray shouted. The whole classroom was looking at the four of them by this time. Mikey was not only bright red by this time but in full asthma attack mode. He fumbled with his inhaler before finally managing a puff in. The chemical soothed him a little as he filled his lungs with a deep breath. He again shot an apologetic look to Sister Margret.

            “What is  _wrong_  with them?” a girl asked her friend. Others were making disapproving noises and some select jocks were imitating them contemptuously.

            “I will have to ask you four to leave if you continue to disrupt the class,” Sister Abigail said.

            “No, we’ll really be quiet now, Sister,” Mikey said. He turned to somehow get his friends together, but they’d all scattered again. Sister Abigail was busy writing something on the chalkboard, so Mikey skirted out of his chair and hurried over to Frank.

            “Woah, dude.” Frank was spinning a beaker of brackish, yellowing water and staring into its contents.

            “And we’re going  _this_  way.” Mikey yanked on Frank’s shoulder but let go after being preoccupied by Nick and Co. grabbing his attention.

            “Mental hospital escape, much?” one of his friends laughed.

            “Sister, these boys are distracting me!” a loud redhead in the front exclaimed. Mikey’s head snapped up towards Frank who was taking a giant gulp of the yellowish liquid. Before he had any time to stop him, Frank was wiping his mouth.

            “Blegh!” Frank shouted and spit it all on the floor. “That’s the worst fucking lemonade ever.”

            “You four, out right now!” Sister Abigail commanded.

            “But –“ he tried.

            “Out.”

             Mikey herded them all outside, Gerard with the best grasp on what was happening and Ray and Frank giggling like maniacs in the back. When they were outside, Ray spoke up first.

            “I think she was a little mad at us.” He, Gerard, and Frank all cracked up.

            “Not. Funny,” Mikey groaned. He let the three of them ride out their high outside where they could run around and lie on the ground. The day itself was pleasant, bristling with the first hints of spring. Still, while the others joked and flailed, Mikey was fretted over what was going to happen next. The innocent sunshine would have never suggested how much trouble they were going to get into. Mid-worry, Frank softly laid himself down on the grass a couple feet away.

            “Clouds are… weird,” Frank sighed. Mikey decided that he seemed Pretty Not Stoned, but he sort of forgot that Frank was a strange fucker to begin with.

            “You’re weird,” Mikey retorted.

            “ _You’re_ weird,” Frank laughed. They shared their content silence for a while before Ray approached them.

            “Oh my  _God_! Why are none of you  _freaking out_? We were _stoned_! In  _class_!” He had been doing this for the past ten minutes.

            “We’re really fucked,” Frank sighed. Mikey thought he detected a hint of remorse in Frank’s voice but only a hint because Frank could be kind of secretive sometimes. They all kind of stared off across the field to where Gerard was simply standing. Not doing anything. Just standing with his arms limp by his sides and, like… staring. “I’m on it,” Frank said and sauntered off towards Gerard. Mikey tore his gaze away from the two of them.  _Right. That was Frank’s job now._

            “Where’d you get the brownies?” Ray asked.

            “What?”

            “Your special brownies. Did you make them with Gerard?”

            “Oh… yeah.” They stared at the sky some more. It was like… stepping-stones. Or maybe salt deposits. So much for the good feeling about today.

            After a while, Sister Margaret approached them. “Your parents are at the head’s office.” Ray whistled to Frank and Gerard who dropped hands and hurried over.

            They sat in a stark room for a while, not looking at each other. Gerard would whisper something to Frank occasionally, and they’d both split a brief sad smile. Mostly it was just quiet. Mikey focused a lot on the dust in the air. Gerard would have come up with something real philosophical to say about it, but mostly it made Mikey want to sneeze.

            “Hey, hey, hey,” Mikey heard Gerard murmur. He looked over to see Frank hugging his brother tightly. “It’s all going to be okay,” Gerard reassured him. Frank looked over to Mikey who gave him a nod. Frank smiled wide again and kissed Gerard full on the mouth.

            “Frank?” asked a woman in the doorway. She looked like a very petite, horrified ostrich. The man standing next to her resembled a slightly taller, slightly more horrified ostrich. The two of them were compact and prim and the type of people that Mikey’s mother would probably refer to as “some goddamn yuppies”. Unfortunately, these goddamn ostrich yuppies also appeared to be Frank’s… parents? _So this is what an explosion sounds like_ , Mikey mused.

            The room was tense. And not the kind of tension where Mikey just didn’t know what to say, but where it literally felt like there were steel chords strung in between Gerard, Frank, and the two ostrich yuppies and they were being stretched to the breaking point. The only sounds were the poundings of intense anger emanating from Frank’s father, the splintering shock coming from his mother, and Gerard’s racing heartbeat. Frank and Gerard had snapped away from each other at his mother’s exclamation and were now practically repelling each other like magnets, sitting on the very sides of their seats.

            “Frank. Get to the car now,” his father said. He didn’t sound much like an ostrich. He sounded… well, he sounded like a man. And still, all of them recoiled against the wall in blind terror. Frank stood up, but the Frank standing was not the one that Mikey had known for the past months. He looked like one of the dust particles Mikey had been staring at. Mikey could almost stare straight through him. Frank didn’t move forward, just stood.

            “Frank Anthony, did you hear me?” His father had spoken again. To his left, Mrs. Iero had replaced her initial face of horror with one of stoic composure. Even if Mikey stared at her with all his might, he could not gauge her thoughts. This woman was a fucking pro. Frank took two shuddery steps forwards before glancing back at Gerard. He was looking down, for once not drilling holes in whatever he was staring at. Just… looking, like he’d never seen a floor before.

            “For goodness sakes!” Frank’s father grabbed his son by the forearm and pulled him towards the two of them. All the chords connecting them… snap.

            The two of them walked outside without another backwards glance. Mrs. Iero paused for just a second to nod politely to the rest of them before following the rest of her family. It took them a couple of minutes to fully process what had happened in the room. Frank’s family had come in, spotted something incriminating, and collected their son. But that wasn’t really what happened was it? No, he knew that that wasn’t what had happened. At the same time, something momentous had occurred. Looking over to his brother, he was sure of it. _Goodbye_ , he thought to no one in particular.  _Take care._

***

Chapter 12 Part 1: In Which They Struggle In the Aftermath 

            Monday morning felt heavy. It was the kind of feeling of being in the desert for days and suddenly emerging, throat aching and eyes hot. He lay in his bed, skeleton pajamas drenched in sweat, just staring at the ceiling. The ghosts of his tears weighed on his eyes.

            But he pulled himself up and he pulled himself together. Gerard knew that it was the end. He could always feel an end coming on, like in a horror movie where the best friend is dead and the main character is so unraveled and just ready to give up. He wished with all his might that he could have been the kind of main character that welcomed the end as an old friend and with open arms. The end was an old friend maybe, but he dealt with it like how he dealt with everything else. Gerard sat in a corner and pretended that it didn’t exist.

            Gerard sat outside the school for this first period and didn’t think. Not about Frank, not about any of his other friends, not even about art. He just sat and smoked and felt the cold air against his skin. They say cold air clears the head. Gerard would beg to differ. As soon as the bell rang, he shot off to the History classroom. Mikey was standing outside awkwardly, fingers tucked under his armpits and glasses pushed all the way up his nose for a change.

            “He’s not here,” Mikey said. He’s not here. He’s not here. Not here. He’s not. Here. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. They killed him. They killed him, didn’t they? They locked him in his room and left him there to die.

            “He’s not dead, Gerard.”

            “How do you know?! His corpse is probably lying in front of his door that’s dented and scraped from his pounding. Oh my God, Mikey! He’s dead!”

            “Gerard. Trust me. He’s not dead.”

            “But how do you  _know_?”

            “… I just know, Gerard.” He looked at his little brother, scrutinizing him for bullshit, but Mikey… knew. “You gotta stay rational, okay?”

            “Oh God, I’m not making it through the school day. I’m really tired. Can you just tell Ray that I went home sick?” Gerard kneaded two fingers into his temples until it hurt.

            “Come… come on, Gerard. Don’t leave. Things are gonna be okay.” Okay. Things were going to be… okay. He had the words. Now he just needed to focus on believing them.

            “Yeah… okay, okay. I’ll stay. You can go to your next class, don’t worry. I promise I’ll stay.” Mikey gave him a long look before sauntering down the hallway, with only one backwards glance. Gerard banged his head against the locker before slipping into the empty bathroom. From his book bag, he pulled out a dull grey flask, which he took a couple of swigs out of. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see his reflection before going in no hurry to his next class.

***

            Frank didn’t show the next day either. This further increased Gerard’s anxiety and though Mikey and Ray forced him to stay, they found him at the end of the day locked in a bathroom stall half drunk and shivering. Sister Margret and Sister Elizabeth both confronted him about his “lack of motivation” and “unsatisfactory work during class”. He could have cared less though. All he did was nod along and apologize at the right moments while their words dropped like marbles from their mouths.

            Gerard wasn’t sleeping well. On Saturday and Sunday he had slept on Mikey’s bedroom floor after crawling into his brother’s room for a change instead of the other way around. The other two days though, Mikey stayed up with Gerard until the sky turned grey in color. Gerard was, in fact, so exhausted from his physical and emotional stress that he fell asleep during art class Tuesday morning much to the teacher’s confusion and disappointment.

            He shuffled down the hallway after art class on Wednesday rubbing his eyes and mumbling to himself like he didn’t need to give everyone any more reasons to think he was insane. Gerard entered the school’s lavish chapel and made himself comfortable enough to see if he could sleep with his eyes open. As soon as he rested his head against the back of the pew though, Mikey barreled straight into his side. Quickly composing himself, Mikey looked uneasily into Gerard’s eyes. It took him a few moments to figure out how to express himself, though Gerard could already tell what he was going to say.

            “He’s back,” Mikey said. “He was in History.”

            “Did… did he talk to you? Did he say anything about me? Does he look all right? He’s fine, right?” Gerard rushed. He whirled his head around the room as if he had a radar in his head that would sense Frank.

            “No. He, uhh, he didn’t talk to me.” Mikey looked out the window as he said it.

            “Oh.” Here was that in between space. As the morning service began, Gerard found himself in that fuzzy area between two big events, still afraid to find if he moved even the slightest of ways in either direction. Or at least, it felt that way. What had happened in the last three days? Why wouldn’t Frank talk to Mikey? Would he talk to him? Gerard felt like disappearing. He didn’t want to face anything. He shouldn’t have anything to face. There was that lurching feeling in his stomach again at the thought of doing anything, especially as the time and distance between him and Frank became more and more apparent. Yet somehow, he saw the lurching in his stomach as a good sign, like he hadn’t let go just yet. He still had something to lose and that was both terrifying and comforting.

            He couldn’t find a time to talk to Frank until the last period of the day. The whole day was like some sort of sick play. It was as if they had suddenly been cast as their older selves but this time the script had been completely rewritten. He was no longer even the star of his own movie. Just an extra to fill up space in the background, the weird kid to add dimension to the flat landscape of Catholic school. Finally, after Religious Studies, Gerard stood up and out of an act of desperation threw himself in Frank’s path. The classroom had emptied out quickly, leaving just the two of them as the last girl rushed out to join her friends in the hallway.

            “Frank,” he sighed and tried to convey everything he had been feeling and everything he was still confused about in a single look.

            “Hi.” Just one word and a look. An empty, small look like a sheet of Plexiglas in between them. And suddenly, everything was different.

            “How… how are you doing?” Gerard asked. He hadn’t planned this far into their conversation, of course, and now he was at a complete loss for words.

            “I’m fine. How are you?” Each word was constrained and polite, the kind of way that you would speak to a stranger.

            “I’m…” confused, hurt, angry, afraid, afraid, afraid! “I’m okay.”  _Can’t you see it? Look how okay I am! No need to worry!  
_

            “That’s good,” Frank said.

            “Yeah. So, uhh, is everything, y’know, alright at, uhh, home and stuff?”

            “Oh yeah. Things are, you know… okay.” Gerard felt like the further they got into their conversation, the deeper the water got. They were drowning. He tried to pinpoint what was different. There had to be some sort of physical manifestation of it, some way to document how everything had changed. Was there something in Frank’s face or a stamp on his hand that meant NO REENTRY? The only tangible thing was the way he felt like he had swallowed a stone and it was pressing against his throat, willing him to cry.

            “I’m glad,” he barely choked and ground his back teeth together in the closest attempt he could at a smile. Frank made no such attempt in return.

            “So… listen. I’ve been doing some… some thinking and maybe it’s just… better if I don’t spend so much time with you guys anymore,” Frank said, still passive. And there it was. Gerard felt his whole insides collapse like a building being demolished. Every inch of him wanted to fight back. _No Frank. Fucking no! This is bullshit! Not even just you and me. All of us. We_ need _each other._ So many different words flew into his head, so many different answers that he was completely overwhelmed. He took a deep breath.

            “You’ve been doing some thinking, or your parents are telling you what to do again?” he asked quietly. Gerard wished so badly that he could have made his voice forceful and passionate, enough to make Frank snap out of it, but all he had was a whisper.

            “It’s for the best.”

            “Who says?”

            “I have to go now.” Frank almost made it to the door before Gerard found his voice again.

            “Frank?” He turned around. What was he going to do? If it were a dramatic movie, Gerard was sure he’d clear the room in two strides and kiss him with all he had. But his legs refused to move. Frank turned back and shuffled out the door. Gerard fell back into a chair and tried to remember the last time Frank said his name.

 *** 

            Monday morning felt heavy. It was the kind of feeling of being in the desert for days and suddenly emerging, throat aching and eyes hot. He lay in his bed, skeleton pajamas drenched in sweat, just staring at the ceiling. The ghosts of his tears weighed on his eyes.

            But he pulled himself up and he pulled himself together. Gerard knew that it was the end. He could always feel an end coming on, like in a horror movie where the best friend is dead and the main character is so unraveled and just ready to give up. He wished with all his might that he could have been the kind of main character that welcomed the end as an old friend and with open arms. The end was an old friend maybe, but he dealt with it like how he dealt with everything else. Gerard sat in a corner and pretended that it didn’t exist.

            Gerard sat outside the school for this first period and didn’t think. Not about Frank, not about any of his other friends, not even about art. He just sat and smoked and felt the cold air against his skin. They say cold air clears the head. Gerard would beg to differ. As soon as the bell rang, he shot off to the History classroom. Mikey was standing outside awkwardly, fingers tucked under his armpits and glasses pushed all the way up his nose for a change.

            “He’s not here,” Mikey said. He’s not here. He’s not here. Not here. He’s not. Here. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. They killed him. They killed him, didn’t they? They locked him in his room and left him there to die.

            “He’s not dead, Gerard.”

            “How do you know?! His corpse is probably lying in front of his door that’s dented and scraped from his pounding. Oh my God, Mikey! He’s dead!”

            “Gerard. Trust me. He’s not dead.”

            “But how do you  _know_?”

            “… I just know, Gerard.” He looked at his little brother, scrutinizing him for bullshit, but Mikey… knew. “You gotta stay rational, okay?”

            “Oh God, I’m not making it through the school day. I’m really tired. Can you just tell Ray that I went home sick?” Gerard kneaded two fingers into his temples until it hurt.

            “Come… come on, Gerard. Don’t leave. Things are gonna be okay.” Okay. Things were going to be… okay. He had the words. Now he just needed to focus on believing them.

            “Yeah… okay, okay. I’ll stay. You can go to your next class, don’t worry. I promise I’ll stay.” Mikey gave him a long look before sauntering down the hallway, with only one backwards glance. Gerard banged his head against the locker before slipping into the empty bathroom. From his book bag, he pulled out a dull grey flask, which he took a couple of swigs out of. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see his reflection before going in no hurry to his next class.

***

            Frank didn’t show the next day either. This further increased Gerard’s anxiety and though Mikey and Ray forced him to stay, they found him at the end of the day locked in a bathroom stall half drunk and shivering. Sister Margret and Sister Elizabeth both confronted him about his “lack of motivation” and “unsatisfactory work during class”. He could have cared less though. All he did was nod along and apologize at the right moments while their words dropped like marbles from their mouths.

            Gerard wasn’t sleeping well. On Saturday and Sunday he had slept on Mikey’s bedroom floor after crawling into his brother’s room for a change instead of the other way around. The other two days though, Mikey stayed up with Gerard until the sky turned grey in color. Gerard was, in fact, so exhausted from his physical and emotional stress that he fell asleep during art class Tuesday morning much to the teacher’s confusion and disappointment.

            He shuffled down the hallway after art class on Wednesday rubbing his eyes and mumbling to himself like he didn’t need to give everyone any more reasons to think he was insane. Gerard entered the school’s lavish chapel and made himself comfortable enough to see if he could sleep with his eyes open. As soon as he rested his head against the back of the pew though, Mikey barreled straight into his side. Quickly composing himself, Mikey looked uneasily into Gerard’s eyes. It took him a few moments to figure out how to express himself, though Gerard could already tell what he was going to say.

            “He’s back,” Mikey said. “He was in History.”

            “Did… did he talk to you? Did he say anything about me? Does he look all right? He’s fine, right?” Gerard rushed. He whirled his head around the room as if he had a radar in his head that would sense Frank.

            “No. He, uhh, he didn’t talk to me.” Mikey looked out the window as he said it.

            “Oh.” Here was that in between space. As the morning service began, Gerard found himself in that fuzzy area between two big events, still afraid to find if he moved even the slightest of ways in either direction. Or at least, it felt that way. What had happened in the last three days? Why wouldn’t Frank talk to Mikey? Would he talk to him? Gerard felt like disappearing. He didn’t want to face anything. He shouldn’t have anything to face. There was that lurching feeling in his stomach again at the thought of doing anything, especially as the time and distance between him and Frank became more and more apparent. Yet somehow, he saw the lurching in his stomach as a good sign, like he hadn’t let go just yet. He still had something to lose and that was both terrifying and comforting.

            He couldn’t find a time to talk to Frank until the last period of the day. The whole day was like some sort of sick play. It was as if they had suddenly been cast as their older selves but this time the script had been completely rewritten. He was no longer even the star of his own movie. Just an extra to fill up space in the background, the weird kid to add dimension to the flat landscape of Catholic school. Finally, after Religious Studies, Gerard stood up and out of an act of desperation threw himself in Frank’s path. The classroom had emptied out quickly, leaving just the two of them as the last girl rushed out to join her friends in the hallway.

            “Frank,” he sighed and tried to convey everything he had been feeling and everything he was still confused about in a single look.

            “Hi.” Just one word and a look. An empty, small look like a sheet of Plexiglas in between them. And suddenly, everything was different.

            “How… how are you doing?” Gerard asked. He hadn’t planned this far into their conversation, of course, and now he was at a complete loss for words.

            “I’m fine. How are you?” Each word was constrained and polite, the kind of way that you would speak to a stranger.

            “I’m…” confused, hurt, angry, afraid, afraid, afraid! “I’m okay.”  _Can’t you see it? Look how okay I am! No need to worry! Be blind._

            “That’s good,” Frank said.

            “Yeah. So, uhh, is everything, y’know, alright at, uhh, home and stuff?”

            “Oh yeah. Things are, you know… okay.” Gerard felt like the further they got into their conversation, the deeper the water got. They were drowning. He tried to pinpoint what was different. There had to be some sort of physical manifestation of it, some way to document how everything had changed. Was there something in Frank’s face or a stamp on his hand that meant NO REENTRY? The only tangible thing was the way he felt like he had swallowed a small stone and it was pressing against his throat, willing him to cry.

            “I’m glad,” he barely choked and ground his back teeth together in the closest attempt he could at a smile. Frank made no such attempt in return.

            “So… listen. I’ve been doing some… some thinking and maybe it’s just… better if I don’t spend so much time with you guys anymore,” Frank said, still passive. And there it was. Gerard felt his whole insides collapse like a building being demolished. Every inch of him wanted to fight back. _No Frank. Fucking no! This is bullshit! Not even just you and me. All of us. We_ need _each other._ So many different words flew into his head, so many different answers that he was completely overwhelmed. He took a deep breath.

            “You’ve been doing some thinking, or your parents are telling you what to do again?” he asked quietly. Gerard wished so badly that he could have made his voice forceful and passionate, enough to make Frank snap out of it, but all he had was a whisper.

            “It’s for the best.”

            “Who says?”

            “I have to go now.” Frank almost made it to the door before Gerard found his voice again.

            “Frank?” He turned around. What was he going to do? If it were a dramatic movie, Gerard was sure he’d clear the room in two strides and kiss him with all he had. But his legs refused to move. Frank turned back and shuffled out the door. Gerard fell back into a chair and tried to remember the last time Frank said his name.

*** 

Day 1 

            The carpet smelled like shit and tears. Gerard was curled up on his side, crying. Shivers contorted and raked his body. Every now and then he spluttered and took in a shuddery breath, but nothing could calm him down. The door creaked open and judging by the sound of the footsteps, it was the only person he could deal with seeing at the moment. Mikey crouched down tentatively behind him. Six seconds. His brother crawled on his hands and knees until he was opposite Gerard and mirrored his fetal position. Thirteen seconds.

            “We got caught,” Gerard croaked in that voice he got after crying that sounds a little wobbly like jello. Mikey took off his glasses. Gerard stopped counting the seconds. It didn’t matter anyways.

            He felt like a nuclear bomb had exploded inside of him and it was all he could do to hold in the energy. Gerard was only skin now, not even solid enough to be a shell. Everything had gone wrong. How did it go so wrong? He replayed the events in his head from the very beginning. The first time he saw Frank in English class.  _“You’re pretty. Can I keep you?”_  Frank’s scared face in the night as he talked about his family.

            Gerard was pulled out of his thoughts when he felt something on his face. He had started crying again without knowing it, and Mikey was wiping away his tears with an old t-shirt. It took him a couple of tries to get himself to calm down again.

            “Did… did I do something wrong?” he whispered in his jello voice. There was tile beneath him as Frank leaned in. On his bed in the post-sunset haze, Frank was kneeling over him making obscene noises in the back of his throat. Had it been then? Was the beginning also the end? Mikey made shushing noises.

            “What did I do wrong, Mikey?” They were kissing outside Gerard’s house, Starbucks Christmas Blend in hand. They were grinding up against each other in their drunken states of mind. They held hands in the locker room. Had he missed something? Had Frank began pulling away too soon? Were the signs there all along? Gerard went over each and every second until the very end. “I’m okay,” he had said.

            “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Mikey answered. But that didn’t make sense! He had to have done  _something_  wrong. Something was different! Why had Frank changed? “Gerard, he’s just… taking… a while.” Mikey was bad with words as it was, but when he was especially stressed or confused he had to take all these long pauses in his sentences to collect himself. Gerard couldn’t stand to hear him like that.

            “But what does ‘taking a while’ mean?” Mikey didn’t have an answer for him that time.

            Gerard rolled onto his stomach and rested his head to the side. He thought dully that this was what crime victims looked like in TV shows. Maybe he would lie there just like that until he decomposed into nothing. “This is all my fault. This is all my fault. Fucking – “ Gerard muttered as he ground his fists into the floor.

            “Stop saying that,” the younger brother cut in. Gerard just stared at him. He used to be able to read Mikey so well. He could barely tell what his brother was thinking at all anymore. As kids, neither of them were ever good at expressing themselves, so they had developed their own way of talking with each other, like a secret code. It was their own private radio wave. But now… Gerard had been so fucking self-absorbed that he felt like he knew his brother the fraction of the way he used to. He’d fucked everything up again. First Frank and then Mikey. He couldn’t even keep himself sane. Gerard ruined everything that he loved.

            “Gerard, you’re… you’re in your dark place,” Mikey said. Gerard opened his mouth but Mikey spoke again. “I know you… I know you want to blame yourself… but don’t just… don’t.” But how could he not?

            Gerard tried to occupy himself, to not blame himself. He bit and worried his lips until he could feel them crack and blood spill out. He gnawed at them until they ached and bruised. It helped a little, he guessed. It occupied his mind.  _Don’t think about… him. Don’t think about him. Don’t think… Stop thinking about him. Stop. Don’t think about him._  But it was almost as if he wanted to think about Frank and to feel the ache in his chest. To know that Frank had once been there, nestled in the emptiest place inside of him. The pain was better. It told him that it was real. It was real. It was real.

***

 Day 2 

            Mikey slept with him on the floor. In the morning, he went upstairs and brought down a box of cornflakes. Gerard wasn’t hungry. He huddled himself inside his bed sheets. It had been weeks since he and Frank slept together in them, but he still inhaled them in long and deep like they still might smell like him. They didn’t. Mikey brought him two cups of water from the bathroom and stayed with him the whole morning.

            Gerard replayed the incidents in his head until he couldn’t stand it. The surprised look on Frank’s mother’s face and the darkness in his father’s. The way Frank had frozen up and shrank in their gaze. Gerard realized that was the only time he had ever seen Frank around his family. He had tried to hard to keep them away from his friends, and in the end Gerard’s mistakes had sucked them in.

            “Gerard.” Mikey seemed more comfortable now that Gerard had cried it out. Before, he was probably so confused. It was usually Gerard taking care of Mikey, or at least trying to. He always had that protective urge around his little brother. It was becoming painfully apparent however that Mikey had always been the strong one and Gerard was kidding himself. He only had one way of dealing with things: drown himself in his troubles then drown his troubles in alcohol.

            “Gerard,” Mikey tried again.

            “What, Mikey?” Gerard snapped. His brother kind of shrunk, not quite expecting his hostile reaction.

            “It’s 2 in the afternoon. Should you really be going for the tequila right now?”

            “Fine then get me a six-pack.” Gerard covered his head with the comforter.

            “Uhh… Gee – “

            Gerard sat up abruptly. “Fucking  _please_? And stop saying my name like that.” The corner where Mikey was sitting got real quiet, real fast. Gerard sat up, less quickly and crawled over to Mikey.

            “I’m sorry, Mikes. That was mean. I’m really sorry.” Mikey still didn’t really look at him. “I’ll go get it myself.” Upstairs, Gerard snuck into the garage where he knew his dad had a secret mini fridge stocked with booze. He anxiously grabbed three six packs and hurried back to the basement.

            “Do you want one?” he asked as he popped the cap to one using his house keys. “Mikey.” Mikey looked up at him with dark eyes, which Gerard chose to ignore. “Do you want one or not?”

            “Sure, I’ll have one,” he sighed eventually. It was no longer Operation: Feel Sorry for Myself. Gerard had a new mission now and there was only one command: drink. By the time Gerard was done three, Mikey was only halfway through his. Several times through the next hours, Mikey tried to get Gerard to talk to talk, but each time Gerard shot him down.

            “Boys, come up. It’s time for dinner,” their mom called through the door. Gerard stashed their beer bottles underneath the bed, just in time before their mom opened the door. “Come on, dinner.”

            “I’m not hungry,” Gerard answered and rolled onto his side in an effort that he hoped said, “Leave me alone”.

            “Mikey?” she asked. He shook his head.

            “You know, I gave you two some space yesterday because you seemed really broken up, Gerard, but you don’t get to isolate yourself from the rest of the world.”

            “Whatever.”

            “Gerard.”

            “Just… just cut him some slack, Ma. I’ll take care of him,” Mikey offered. Gerard could feel her eyes boring into his back, but in a couple of seconds he heard the door close.

            “You don’t have to be a dick to Mom, dude,” Mikey said. Gerard knew he was right. He really did. But nothing mattered anyways so…

            “Yeah, yeah. Just hand me another beer, will you?” He obediently crawled to the end of the bed and handed up another bottle.

            “Uhh… dude…”

            “Shut  _up_.” Gerard wasn’t drunk enough to talk yet. It was quiet again, but not the comfortable quiet they had shared before. Gerard knew this sort of quiet. It was Mikey’s sort of quiet that said more than he ever said out loud. Gerard ignored it also, just like Mikey’s dark eyes, but he knew that it was the last straw.

            “I don’t have to stay in here with you if you’re going to be an ass to me too.”

            “Then fucking leave me alone! I’ll be  _okay_ if you just leave me the hell alone.” His words stung the both of them.

            The door clicked softly. Mikey was never one for a dramatic exit, no matter how mad he was. It was Gerard who liked to storm out and destroy everything in his path. How mad was Mikey right now? He didn’t care. Or at least, he pretended he didn’t care. It was easy to pretend he didn’t care with beer nestling in the bottom of his stomach.

***

            3 am. Dark. Everything swirling. No, just can’t see straight. Tired, but can’t fall asleep. Keep hearing funny noises, like monsters under the bed. Feel like Rorschach right now. Gerard laughed humorlessly, just a rush of air out of empty lungs.

            His stomach lurched.  _No, stay down_ , Gerard thought. _Stay down puke. Noo_. His demands of his digestive system were fruitless.

            “Mikey,” he slurred. No response. He tilted his head, but Mikey wasn’t in the room. Mikey was always in the room. “Mikes,” he groaned. No answer. “Ohh,” he moaned and rolled off the bed, landing with a painful thud. The lurch made some of his innards rise up through his throat and fall out of his mouth. Gotta just get… bathroom. Standing up, he had that feeling like his head was dunked in a bucket of water. Walking. One foot then the next. Swaying. Oh shit, he was going to puke it all out any second now. He fell against the toilet, coughing and retching. Then it all came spilling out. “Ugh,” he coughed. There was vomit in his hair. He was so exhausted _. Have to get back to bed… gonna fall… asleep_. Gerard folded over and slumped against the sink. His forehead banged painfully against the side. “Ow,” he groaned under his breath. “Mikey?” he mumbled as he fell into a dark sleep on the bathroom floor.

***

            Donna almost trampled right over Mikey on her way to get a glass of water in the middle of the night. She hadn’t even heard him leave his room. But here he was, nestled on the hardwood floor in front Gerard’s door and fast asleep. A flashlight and a box of tissues lay a foot away from his head. He didn’t even have a blanket.  _Those boys are going to be the death of me_ , Donna thought.

            “Mikey, hun,” she murmured. He started awake so violently she had to take hold of his shoulders for a second.

            “Did I fall asleep?” he asked. She nodded. He curled himself up into a ball, flashlight at the ready like a little nighttime vigilante. She almost laughed to herself at the thought of her little Mikey as a watchman.

            “Darlin’, you’ve gotta go back up stairs.” Mikey just looked at her. He didn’t even shake his head no. Just watched her. Her kids would never  _not_  amaze her. “Are you looking after Gerard?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” he answered and stared intently at the door, probably listening for even the slightest of sounds. There was no changing his mind and nothing she could really do, so all she did was go into the living room and bring Mikey a blanket. It was the one that he and Gerard would sit under together as little kids when they watched cartoons on Saturday morning. Now here they were, years later, with Gerard refusing to be helped and Mikey camped outside his door refusing not to help. Donna squatted down and wrapped the blanket around Mikey’s shoulders. He had dark circles under his eyes and a red line where his glasses had pushed into his nose too hard while he slept. He almost looked like a weary middle-aged man, not at all like the naïve teenager he still was.

            “Tell Gerard that he doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow if he’s not feeling up to it,” she told him. This time, Mikey nodded. There were almost tears in his eyes. She hugged him as tight as she could because she knew. She wasn’t sure what she knew, but she knew it and wanted to let Mikey know that she did and he didn’t have to be so afraid. He hugged right back and said, “Thanks Mom.”

            Donna kissed him on his forehead before climbing back upstairs looking back only once at her little vigilante.

***

Days 3 and 4

            Gerard woke up and there was a familiar blue icepack on his head. An angel had pulled him back to bed.  _I believe in angels, don’t I_  he thought.

            He drank the rest of the beer by noon. No point in sobering up. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself anymore, so he let himself fall into a restless sleep. Strange faces of the people he loved and the people he hated blended together. They told him bad things that made his bones feel like they were breaking but then more angels came from above and put him back together only to tear him apart themselves.

            Mikey went to school, or at least, Gerard thought he did. Maybe Mikey went to his vanishing place where no one, not even Gerard, could find him. Gerard wondered where Ray was and if he was smiling his golden ticket smile while holding hands with Krista. Gerard didn’t let himself think about Frank. He waited for his drink to wash away his memories of Frank like a hailstorm of bullets, but the damn bastards were bulletproof. So he locked them up and hid them away. He didn’t cry.

            His mom left him dinner outside his door, but he didn’t find it until it went cold and soggy. Gerard ate it anyways because he was starving. He went into his father’s secret alcohol stash again, but this time he didn’t feel bad about it. He drank and drank until he couldn’t walk straight and then he drank until he fell asleep like the bum in the corner of the pub. This time his dreams were dark and deep and so was the world when he woke up.

            Time didn’t make sense anymore. There was the part where the world was dark and nobody moved upstairs and Gerard felt safe. There was the part where the world was bright and he hoped no one would come down to find him rotting in his own self-deprecation. Then there was the part in between. That was the part where Frank still existed. That was the part where Gerard still cried. It was the worst part.

            “Gerard, can you come upstairs?” Mikey asked. He was standing in the doorway with his head down and arms crossed. It was the light part. Somewhere in the afternoon maybe. Gerard’s head felt like it was full of crumpled up bed sheets.

            “I dunno,  _can_ I come upstairs?” Gerard slurred like the dickhead he was. He really wasn’t all that drunk at the moment, just pissy and sad again. But also kind of drunk.

            “Please come upstairs?”           

            “Why?”

            “’Cause, Gee.”

            “Fuck off, Mikey.” Mikey didn’t fuck off though. He sat down by Gerard’s art table and waited for Donna to come into the room.

            “Mikey, where is your big br – “ she began but cut herself off as she surveyed the room. Gerard tried to move quickly but ended up flailing in Mikey’s direction.

            “Quick, Mikey, hide the stuff,” he groaned and gestured towards the half full bottle at Mikey’s feet. Gerard had stopped caring what he was drinking by that time. Anything was good as long as it got him sufficiently numb.

            “Gerard! Are you drunk right now?” Donna gasped.

            “Noo,” Gerard mumbled into the blanket.

            “Gerard, what the fuck – hell – heck!” she screeched. Mikey rested his head down on the desk. “What on Earth happened?”

            “Nothing,” Gerard groaned, pressing his fists into his eyes. “Nothing, nothing, nothing happened.” Donna crossed her arms in that motherly way that was angry but still concerned.

            “Frank broke up with him,” Mikey answered.

            “Broke up with – Gerard!” his mom spluttered. “You’ve been in here for four days! And what do I find you’ve been doing? Drinking! Drinking, Gerard! You are _just_  like your father!  _Drowning_ in alcohol!”

            This was about when Gerard started tuning her out. Elena told him once that his mother had always been the type that needed scream out her feelings. She looked a little insane right now, like a woman possessed. He wasn’t sure what to do.

            After a couple minutes of Donna pacing and lecturing, she sank down next to Gerard on his bed. Her face fell and she was just Mom again.

            “Oh Gerard, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He touched his face and his fingers streaked a few tears across his cheeks like war paint. Gerard hadn’t realized he’d been crying again. Screw his body for betraying him like that.

            “I’m sorry, Ma, I’m real sorry. I’m sorry. I….” He had no idea what to say.

            “It’s okay, hun. It’s okay. You just can’t do that to me, alright?” She rubbed his back affectionately. It reminded Gerard of when he was a kid and he’d sneak into his parents’ room when he had nightmares. Suddenly, that time felt very far away, yet he was still somehow the same scared child.

            “I just… didn’t know what to do.”

            “I forgive you. You’re still grounded until you’re thirty though.” Then they did what they were supposed to do. They hugged it out.

            And Gerard didn’t tell anyone when he didn’t feel better at all.

***

Days 5 – 10

            Gerard went to school Monday and the day after and the day after and the day after and the day after. He got out of bed and brushed his teeth and did his homework. He kept his head down and didn’t talk. During lunch he locked himself in the bathroom so he didn’t have to feel the concerned gazes of Mikey and Ray. He couldn’t help but notice, though, on his way to class, Ray and Krista shyly sitting next to each other. They peeked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and were just as dorky together as everyone thought they were going to be. Gerard felt pangs in his chest whenever he saw them.

            English and Religious Studies were the worst. He skipped as much as he could before the day Sister Lucy pulled him aside and told him very nicely that he wasn’t in attendance for another day that he would fail the course. Ever since then he hid in the back of the class and didn’t think about the first time he had exchanged a wild glance with the wide-eyed boy sitting two seats away. Frank didn’t look at him anymore. Class shouldn’t have felt strange now that Frank wasn’t sitting beside him. Gerard had gone years without Frank. There was really no reason that he should feel this way.

            Yet he did. That was the problem with the heart. It was always stretching and aching for the things it shouldn’t have, even more so when he tried to shut it away. Gerard could have gone his whole life the way he always had been, harsh and selfish and disconnected. But all it took was for one teenage boy’s glowing eyes and jittering fingers to fit right into that sad little empty place in his heart.

            Time passed. It did. Slowly and agonizingly, but it did. Gerard didn’t know what he was waiting for. But after a while, he got tired of waiting.

            “Mom, I’m going out!” he called quickly and made a move for the front door, but his mother intercepted him.

            “Where’re you going?” she asked. He stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and looked at his mom firmly.

            “Just a friend’s house. It’ll be good for me to get out,” he answered.

            “You’re okay, Gerard?” she asked seriously. Fuck, Gerard felt guilty lying to her.

            “Oh yeah.”

            “Promise?”

            “Yeah,” he answered and skirted out the door. Gerard found himself along the streets in the really shitty part of town, the dangerous part that his parents always told him to stay out of as a kid. It had been a long, long time since he had been here. The apartment he was headed to had become a sort of second home to the many dispossessed shitheads with no future of Belleville: freaks, junkies, and gutter punks all filtered in and out of the apartment whenever they pleased. Gerard used to spend a lot of time there his junior year. It had been so long…

            Apartment 17C was owned by a twenty-one year drug dealer old named Bert. It was the same cheap and dirty apartment that Bert had been living in ever since he graduated high school with hopes of starting a band. Even though Bert was still young, everyone knew those dreams were long lost. He kept the key on top of the doorframe like in  _The Evil Dead_  as a sort of ritual for the kids that crashed there. Gerard worried about how familiar it felt, jimmying the sticky lock just right so the door would open. He stood in the doorway while he let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting and haze of smoke. Gerard was surprised Bert had even remembered by pay the electrical bills this time around.

            “Well, well, well,” a man’s voice said. Gerard saw Bert stand up slowly and take a couple steps towards him. “Look what the cat dragged in.” Gerard kept his head down low. “Hey guys! Check it out,” Bert called to no one in particular. A girl splayed out on the cracked vinyl couch lifted her head slightly to peer at Gerard, but he wasn’t of her interest and she closed her eyes again. Another man walked out of the kitchen swinging a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. Under Bert’s gaze Gerard felt insecure like the kid who was never quite in on the joke. Still, he wouldn’t let himself get deterred tonight.

            “Who’s it, Bert?” the man asked. Gerard thought he vaguely recognized him.

            “If it ain’t Gerard Way,” Bert said, landing heavily on each word. Gerard brought his head up to meet Bert’s stare. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” Still, Gerard didn’t say anything. “You gonna stand there all night or what?” Gerard closed the door while still holding Bert’s challenging gaze. “The kid’s grown up since the last time I saw him,” he leered. Bert looked older too. He could’ve easily been in his late twenties. He reminded Gerard a bit of a wild dog or – no, even better – a werewolf with his matted hair even longer than Gerard’s own and dark sunken eyes. But mostly he was the same Bert, predatory and thin from living off of alcohol and stale crackers.

            “Doesn’t he talk?” the girl on the couch asked.

            “Sure he does,” Bert answered. “Just a little shy, that’s all.” He patted Gerard’s face and sat himself down on a beer stained lounge chair. Aside for the chick on the couch, there were two guys in the kitchen poking at cockroaches with pizza crusts and a boy with a shockingly big nose and a bespectacled, deadlocked girl sipped some drinks in a corner. Big Nose tried to draw Dreadlocks closer but she shook him off and went to sit on the couch with the other girl. Gerard decided to take a seat on the floor where there was a half full bottle of beer resting. He finished it in three gulps. Bert was still watching him curiously.

            “So why’d you come back here then? Because last time I saw you, you said you never wanted to see my fucking face again.” Bert waited for answer, but didn’t get one. “I’ve been good while you were gone. Goddamn wonderful. Branden went off to college, like a goddamn sucker.” Gerard still offered no reply. “I’m getting a band together. Gonna call it something really good.” Bert’s words wrapped around inside Gerard’s mind. He had always known how to get right into Gerard’s head. Even when he said nothing at all, somehow he could still play with Gerard and his thoughts. With each sentence, Gerard found himself transforming into the teenager he was a year ago who stumbled his way into the bad part of town, lost and confused and clinging to Bert’s side. He found his insecurities and crippling fears rise to the surface. That was all he was: a self-destructive child.

            “So I’m thinking it’s one of two things. Either you’ve got nowhere else to go right now or you want something. Or maybe both.”

            “Can I have some of that?” Gerard tried to ask casually, pointing to the bottle of Jack Daniels that Bert had taken from the dude. He regretted it almost as soon as he said it, Bert looking down at the bottle with quick realization.

            “Fucking asshole!” Bert yelled, loosing his sleek cool. Gerard cringed against the wall. “Goddamn leech, just here for the booze!”

            “So what if I did? I don’t owe anything to you,” Gerard shot back but he even sounded unsure to himself. Bert looked at him for a long time, first feral like when he yelled but slowly his face morphed into a sadistic grin.

            “You must have fucked up big time, Way,” he began.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “I mean, you had to come crawling back here, like I knew you were going to. Kids like you always come back. You’re like me, you know,” Bert continued on.

            “We are nothing like each other and this is none of your goddamn business!” Gerard said, snatching for the bottle that Bert held just out of reach. He could feel his eyes stinging again.

            “Little Gerard Way scared all the time. Trying to hold it together,” he sneered. “Doing anything he can so he doesn’t have to feel the pain.”

            “Shut  _up_!” Gerard shouted.

            “Here we go! Did you find someone new? After you left here? Did he make you feel pretty and safe? Was he a good fuck?”

            “Give me the fucking booze!” Gerard interrupted but Bert just plowed on.

            “And then you went and screwed it all up. Made a goddamn mess of it all. Am I still on the right track? Or did he break your heart?” Bert laughed a bitter laugh like coughing up ash. “That’s what they all do. And then you came back here because that’s what you do. When you fuck up and things get bad you run.”

            “You don’t know shit about anything,” Gerard growled.

            “But to err is human, Gerard,” Bert said and stroked Gerard’s chin tenderly. “I understand that. He probably saw all your flaws and ran. Some of them just don’t understand, do they?”

            “Go piss up a tree,” Gerard spat. Bert shoved him away. He stood up and held the bottle in the direction away from Gerard.

            “What was his name?” he taunted. Gerard jumped up and shielded himself from the blow of Bert’s words. “Tell me his name, I’ll let you have it.” Gerard struggled against him but it was no use. “Come on. Tell me his goddamn name, you little shithead.”

            Gerard leaned his head against the wall and fought back tears. “Frank,” he whispered. Bert took his hand and folded the bottle into his own hand. They stared at each other, in some unnamed struggle where they knew neither would win.

            “I hope Frank left you bleeding and alone,” he growled right in Gerard’s face. “Do whatever the hell you want.” Finally, Bert pushed himself away from Gerard and stalked into another room, slamming the door behind him.

            The deeper the night got, the more people came into the apartment. Gerard found himself surrounded by complete strangers talking and smoking while he scurried around in the shadows like a rat. The glorious thing about the newcomers was that with them they seemed to bring an unlimited supply of liquor. If there was a drink in sight, Gerard took it. He knew his limits with alcohol. He knew how much it took for him to be tipsy, to be bubbly, and to be flat out wasted. He knew his limits. But that night he forgot all those limits, or rather didn’t care anymore.

            He stumbled his way through a doorway and found the bathroom. Gerard had even shuffled his way to the medicine cabinet before he caught sight of Big Nose splayed out on top of the girl with the dreadlocks. She lifted a bored face over the edge of the tub to scrutinize Gerard with blank eyes.

            “Whatever,” she sighed and leaned her head uncomfortably against the side of the bathtub and Big Nose began erratically thrusting into her again. Desperately trying to block out the boy’s whines, Gerard opened the cabinet and found a plastic bag labeled in choppy Sharpie handwriting XANAX. He swung the door shut and popped a pill into his mouth. He could feel is push uncomfortably against his throat as he swallowed down. There was something on the ground – Gerard couldn’t tell what anymore – a spoon, a belt, whatever, that he slipped on and came crashing into the ground.  _Whatever_. Blank eyes. He washed down two more pills with a shot of vodka and clunked his head against the wall.  _Whatever_ , he heard the girl say in his head.

            Gerard just leaned back and tried to let the alcohol consume him.

***

            “What the fuck is he still doing here?” the dark wolf rumbled. The other wolves shrugged and lounged indifferently. “Get him out of here,” the big black one snarled. None of the others moved. “Get him the fuck out of here! I don’t want to see him! Get that fucker out of here!” the midnight wolf howled.

            “Just take him,” a she wolf with choppy white fur murmured to another. The three wolves – no, not wolves, people – crept towards him, swimming faces above him. His brain wasn’t working right. Of course they’re people, not wolves. He was just dozing off again. Where was he?

            “Come on, Fatty,” the girl said as she and a man hoisted him up. Gerard looked for his mouth to protest, but he couldn’t remember the words. His whole body was going wonderfully wrong. It was like squeezing and squeezing and cold and colder, then a rush of blood and heat, then squeezed tight again. Not bad. Not good. Thoughts were being squeezed too. Things were crawling into the sides of his eyes.

            Paying attention was getting too difficult around then, so Gerard stopped. He had finally found the infinite darkness inside himself. Six miles beneath the sea. Focus on staying awake. Eyes were heavy but if he closed them, the pit would swallow him whole. No thoughts were flowing through his head. Just feelings and dreams. So many dreams. On the way out, Gerard thought he heard the black wolf howl in the night.

            The wolves tossed him into a car and he came crashing down easily. Where were they taking him?

            “Whose is he?” another wolf asked.

            “No one’s,” the she wolf answered.

            No one’s. He was no one’s. Who was he then? There. He was there. A dream grabbed him by the hair and yanked him under the ocean again.

***

            Water looked so strange from below. Only sound was a ringing like a flat line. Hollow. Further down there was… there was… nothing. But also something. A line. No… a wall? A wall. Cracks running through, and covered in moss. Beneath the ocean. Just a wall going on forever. Push it and it’ll fall. He should push it. He should run away.

            The water was draining. It was coming down on him. The wall shrank away. Any second now he’ll break the surface. He doesn’t want to break the surface. It’s coming…

***

            Gerard coughs and splutters. He thinks water is still in his hair. Water? Why would there be water in his hair?

            “Turn left here, I think.”

            “Ugh! Gross!”

            “What’d he do?”

            “That smells fucking disgusting!”

            “Did the bastard just barf all over my fuckin’ car?”

            “Right here, I think.”

            “Throw the asshole out. That fuckin’ ree–“.  _Slam_! Gerard fell onto the shore. Curb. He was in the street. There was a crushed soda can a few feet away. How much Xanax did he take? Stop thinking.

            The dreams about the angels came back. They reached inside of him and pulled out gobs of black and red goo. It oozed between their fingers and then they painted the wall with it. The wall was back too. The angels got covered in him, and soon they aren’t so much angels as… monsters. Gerard tried to crawl away from them as fast as he can, but his legs gave out beneath him and he fell again.

            There was someone beneath him. He knew exactly who it was. He knew the shape of the body and the way their hair feels.

            “Frank!” he yelled and shook Frank’s form. He wasn’t moving. The red black liquid leaked out of his mouth, from his eyes, from his ears as he shook Frank, trying to get him to wake up. Frank’s fragile frame fell limp and Gerard knew it was time. He stared straight into the wall. He was tired of this abyss underwater. Tired of it all.

            “Take it… just take it all away,” he sighed in defeat and reached a hand forward to break down the wall. He was so close. So close.

             A single angel remained. It grasped his wrists and pulled him up and away out of the water.

            “No… wait,” Gerard tried to shout, but his voice became thinner and thinner as they ascended. He broke the surface.

Chapter 13: In Which Mikey Does What Needs to Be Done

            “Gerard?” Mikey whispered, shivering in the middle of the living room. What season was it? It had to be like 30 fucking degrees in there. He didn’t quite remember why he woke up. All of a sudden he had just started awake to find himself in a cold sweat. It seemed to be around early morning, just past the darkest hours when everything looks like something out of Picasso’s blue period or whatever. All blue. And stuff. It gave Mikey the creeps.

            According to his mother Gerard was “out with some friends”, but Mikey knew how good of a liar his brother was. It ran in the family. _Outside_ , he thought, _I should check… outside._ Disoriented and without his glasses, Mikey smacked into a few chairs on his way out. For a few seconds, he stood perfectly still before remembering that his mom was working the night shift. Mikey was all alone in the house. That really gave him the creeps.

            Outside was even colder than inside. The morning air bit at his cheeks and ankles and shot straight though his pajamas. Through the half morning light, he squinted and tried to focus his bleary eyes.

            “Gerard?” he asked the yard. A car drove by, its headlines illuminating a dark lump in the gutter. _Oh my God. Oh fuck oh my God oh my…_ Mikey’s hands tightened on the railing until his knuckles turned white. Then he ran.

            “Gerard?” he squeaked, turning over his shapeless lump of a brother curled up in the middle of the street. He was an inch away from drowning in a pool of his own vomit. Mikey tried to remember the last time he saw his brother this fucked up. He desperately tried not to consider that maybe this was the worst he’s ever been. Gerard was seriously gross and covered in a lot of shit Mikey didn’t want to think about, but at least he was breathing, though it was these really slow huge breaths that were too far in between to be normal. Hair, wet with a combination of sweat, dew, and puke, hid his face. The horrid stench of alcohol wafted from him. After smoothing his hand over Gerard’s face, Mikey found lips cracking and blue in the places he’s bitten them too much and eyes with purple bruise-like circles underneath them, which contrasted with his grey, zombie-like skin. Mikey realized that he never took a breath after spotting Gerard, and he let a rush of freezing air in. It pierced his lungs and he had to cough and splutter before he got his shit together enough to fucking do something.

            “What the hell?” he tried to shout in Gerard’s face, but it comes out weak and breathy. Instead, he grabbed his brother’s wrists and shook him violently. “Wake up, Gee!” he pleaded. The older boy remained limp. “Wake up, wake _up_ , asshole!” Mikey yelled until his voice was hoarse and it felt like a steamroller was crushing his lungs. Still chanting his brother’s name, he smushed his face into Gerard’s hair without regard for how disgusting it was. “Please…” he sighed.

            “Tired,” Gerard breathed finally, and tried to roll over into the gutter.

            “What the….” Mikey’s brain was malfunctioning. He started to loose feeling in his bare toes pushed against the concrete sidewalk and each breath was shaky and panicky, but Gerard was awake. He had to think straight right now. Keep it together. Keep it together.

            “Gerard?” Mikey said again and pulled his brother’s head up. This time Gerard’s eyes opened halfway, and they were cloudy and unfocused.

            “Really… tired,” Gerard moaned and let out a long breath with all the effort that it took for him to utter those two words.

            “Stay awake, man,” Mikey said, slapping Gerard’s cheek a little. “Hey, hey man. Stay awake, okay?” Gerard groaned but Mikey just slapped him again. “Come on.”

            The year before, Gerard had been drunk constantly. He’d fallen in with a crowd of high school dropouts and an asshole crack dealer named Bert. Every other night he was out with them, drinking in abandoned warehouses and sleeping on strangers’ floors. Mikey had even gone down with Gerard and gotten wasted with him a few times, but junkies made him really sad and nervous so he stopped. Gerard had never cared what he did to himself and Mikey had been fine with that for a long, long time. Not any more.

            “You slept in the street?” he choked out. Gerard sort of shrugged like he wasn’t quite sure what Mikey was saying anymore.

            There weren’t a lot of times in his life when Mikey wished he was 6’ 4” and built like Nick Vanderlin, but now was sure as hell one of those times. He swore at his skinny arms as he tried to hoist Gerard over his shoulder. When he tugged harder at Gerard’s shoulder, his other arm swung forward and smacked him in the face sending them both crashing into the curb. Pain shot through Mikey’s arm when his elbow scraped against the sidewalk, and Gerard’s head made an unpleasant noise when it hit the asphalt.

            “Shit. I am so not giving you a concussion too.” He was freaking the fuck out. Mikey needed his inhaler.

            Two more attempts and a lot of grunting later, he was hunched over with Gerard leaning heavily on him. Their path to the front door left gaping open was a slow and meandering one because Gerard kept swaying or stopping. He’d breath heavy and work out the occasional “Where am I?” or “Tired”. He even stopped once to ask, “Is that Mikey?” but a lot of the time he just didn’t say anything and let his head fall forward. When they got inside, Gerard sighed and drooped to the floor again.

            “No no no no,” Mikey whispered and crouched down. He pulled his brother into a sitting position and pushed Gerard’s wet hair haphazardly out of his face. Blood that had trickled from his elbow smeared over Gerard’s cheek. “Come on, Gerard, it’s not the time to sleep. No sleep.”

            “Ugh,” Gerard sighed and just like that he was out cold again. No matter how hard Mikey shook him, he still wouldn’t get up. Mikey’s throat hurt and he still couldn’t see properly. He lay down on the floor and bit down on his knuckles until his eyes watered. He didn’t want to do this. He couldn’t do it. _No, no, no, no, fucking no!_

            Mikey tried to take a deep breath but was cut off. Still, it steadied him a bit. He could do this. He could do this. He. Could. Do. This. He needed to do this.

            Grabbing Gerard’s ankles, he pulled his brother’s body to the basement stairs. Why were there so many of them? Mikey got down on his knees and reached a hand into Gerard’s gross hair to cushion his head. Step by step, Mikey pulled his brother downstairs. It made his thighs and back burn from the effort. When he was almost all the way down, though, he missed his footing and both of them tumbled down the rest of the flight. Gerard’s body was crumpled over his legs and the back of Mikey’s head throbbed incessantly. Still, he didn’t break down again.

            “Don’t die, Gerard, okay?” he whispered into his unconscious brother’s ear. His words were torn apart by ragged breath and persistent coughing. “Okay? You hear me?” Gerard did not stir.

            Mikey dragged Gerard into the basement by his wrists. Acid was coursing through his veins, and he was covered in sweat. “Come _on_!” he huffed as he tugged forcefully on Gerard. _Only a little ways to go now_ , he thought to himself.

            When he got into the bathroom, Mikey stumbled to the cabinet and fumbled around for his inhaler. A couple of puffs soothed his lungs enough for him to climb into the bathtub and twist the shower knob as hard as he could. A jet of cold water practically paralyzed him for a moment as it hit his chest while his lungs shriveled up in shock. He took a few gulping, watery breaths. It didn’t take long for the water to soak completely through his pajamas. Once he regained something that resembled a coherent thought process, Mikey clambered over the edge of the bathtub and yanked Gerard’s arms up.

            “Up,” he commanded as he pulled desperately against Gerard. “Get up!” He got out, dripping water onto the floor, and shoved Gerard into the tub. “Don’t die, Gerard. Dying is for pussies,” Mikey choked out. He slid them both into a seated position with Mikey cradling Gerard in his lap as they were slowly drenched by the ice-cold water. Mikey slapped Gerard’s face, much harder this time.

            “Ahh,” Gerard groaned barely audible over the rush of the shower.

            “Go like this,” Mikey instructed, wiping his hair from his eyes with one hand and poking at his elder brother’s gaping mouth with the other. When he did not even twitch Mikey leaned his head against the wall, his teeth chattering from the cold. He reached his fingers past Gerard’s sore lips and down his throat. The muscles there churned against Mikey’s fingers. Gerard pathetically threw up, the viscous mixture dribbling down his chin and onto his front. Mikey reached his fingers even deeper down Gerard’s throat until nothing else was coming out, and his brother was left hacking pathetically.

            “Mikey?” Gerard asked finally. His voice was hoarse and confused, but at least he was aware of where he was and what was going on.

            “Fucking… yeah.” Mikey got out and climbed around the tub, this time to face Gerard. “Don’t talk,” he murmured. “Just stay awake, okay?”

            “Yeah,” Gerard said and made a move that seemed at least a little deliberate. Mikey turned up the heat on the shower and carefully stripped off Gerard’s wet t-shirt. There were a few greenish bruises down his arm and a black one on his hip like maybe he had fallen down one too many times. His brother lifted a hand halfway towards the back of his neck like it was hurting, so Mikey pushed him lightly aside and got behind him again. Pulling Gerard towards him like a ragdoll, Mikey began to rub his neck. He wasn’t sure of a lot of what he was saying to Gerard after that, but he knew that he had to keep talking. Mikey was afraid that if he let Gerard fall asleep again he’d go into like a fucking coma or something. Who knew what Gerard would dream up all alone in a coma? He went from massaging Gerard’s neck to combing through his hair with his fingers. After a little, he reached for the bottle of shampoo and washed the night out of Gerard’s hair. Dipping Gerard’s hair into the stream of water, he was careful not to rinse any water in his brother’s eyes. Once there were no more suds, Mikey rested his head on Gerard’s shoulder in exhaustion.

            “You really scared me, big bro,” he sighed. Gerard was still tripped out pretty bad and shivering like crazy even after the water heated up. Mikey turned the knob and climbed out of the tub while Gerard slumped against the side of the tub, his eyes drooping like a basset hound’s. After a couple more puffs out of his inhaler, Mikey fished out some dry clothes from the bottom of Gerard’s closet. He took a seat next to Gerard with just the wall of the bathtub separating him from his drunken mess of a brother.

            “I was thinking… like, for a while…” Gerard let his words die in the air and get washed away down the drain. He closed his eyes and let his head loll to the side.

            “What were you thinking?” Mikey asked.

            “What?” He coughed and his eyes opened blearily again.

            “What were you thinking, Gerard?”

            “What?”

            “Just now, you said ‘I was thinking…’ and then you stopped.”

            “Oh.” He thought for a second. “I was thinking that, like, maybe… I was dying. Or that maybe I was already dead… and this… this was like purgatory. But that can’t be right… right?” Gerard said eventually.

            Mikey grabbed his brother’s hand firmly and they sat in silence for what seemed like another eternity.

            “Squeeze my hand if you’re still awake,” Mikey told Gerard. He felt weak pressure on his fingers.

            “I can’t really… see good… right now,” Gerard groaned. Longer silence and then, “Mikes, I’m gonna fall asleep.”

            “That’s alright, I’ll… like, talk a lot.”

            “Kay.”

            Mikey wracked his brain quickly for something to talk about. _Anything Mikey! Come on._

            “Like uhh, Glen Danzig started a new band. They’re called Danzig. Hah, I know, creative. Bob told me.” Gerard sort of grunted.

            “Squeeze if you’re awake.” The older brother obediently squeezed. Mikey got up to take off Gerard’s soggy shoes and socks. _Those are going straight into the trash_ , he sighed and tossed them to the corner. The red LED clock read 4:39 am. God, he was tired.

            “Gerard, hey. Stay awake.” His brother sort of blinked at him in response. “There’s something, like, I haven’t told you. It’s like fucking big. Yeah… really big. Are you gonna remember this in the morning?” In response, Gerard weakly shrugged. “Okay, okay… whatever. So like in the fall…it was a Thursday, I think. Maybe a Wednesday. It doesn’t matter. I just remember it was the 28th because of _Strangeways_. Remember how I skipped school after lunch to get it in the city? Well, I spent the rest of the day kind of wandering around like listening to it on repeat and I ended up in, like, this shitty coffee joint.” Mikey took a bit of a pause, remembering. “I'm like the only one in there, I mean uhh, except for like this old lady reading some creepy erotic romance novel. Anyways, I'm in there and then this, like, girl walks in. She gets her coffee and sits down like all the way on the other side of the room and, like, I'm sort of staring but not in a creepy way! I was just bored. And stuff.” Mikey stares at the sink and plays with his pants. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, trying to find the right words. “So there she is and she's, like, _gorgeous_. Like _really pretty._ And then I think she saw me, so I sort of look away. And then she sits down right in front of me. Just like… yeah. And I kind of look at her and she kind of looks at me and she's wearing way too much eyeliner and we kind of sit there for a little bit and, I don't know. I just take off my headphones and say, "Do you want to listen?" and she looks at me, and then she takes the headphones and puts them on and she looks really stupid with them on because they're too big on her but they're also too big on me.” He looks down and cracks a little smile. “And uhh like then she closes her eyes and tilts her head to the side and smiles and goes, "You skipped class to get the new Smiths album as soon as it came out?" and I ask her, "You like The Smiths?" and she smiles this huge, beautiful smile – she’s got such a beautiful smile – and says, ‘The guitars are nice, but Morrissey's way too whiny for me.’ And… I don't know. We hung out for the rest of the day and she lives in Bloomfield and we've been skipping classes to see each other. And umm stuff.” Mikey was too far into his own world, caught up in his memories of her. “Not really because we have to, but because it's sort of our thing. That's what she says anyways. She's really superstitious and likes rituals. I like that about her. Oh yeah, and her name’s Alicia. I like her.” He exhaled a giant breath after talking more than he usually did in a week. It felt like a giant weight had been lifted from his chest now that he had it out of there.

            “Squeeze,” Mikey ordered. This time Gerard did not squeeze his hand. “Gerard?” Mikey asked as a resurgence of fear climbed into his throat. In the bathtub, Gerard’s head was leaned backwards and his eyes were shut again. Mikey reached a hand over the tub and smacked Gerard’s face with all his might.

            “Wake up!” he shouted. Gerard started a little and Mikey noticed a cold sheen of sweat beading on Gerard’s forehead. “Are you okay? Tell… tell me what you need, dude.”

            “… Frank?”

            “What the… oh fucking….” _Now_ Mikey was flipping the fuck out. He had really just lost his shit by this point. This was the end. Gerard kept repeating Frank’s name like this pitiful lost puppy barking for its owner.

            “Frank?” Gerard asked. Mikey took a deep breath and walked to Gerard’s telephone by his bed. One ring… three… five, six, seven…

            “Hello?” a bleary woman’s voice asked.

            “Yes, Mrs. Toro? Is Ray there?”

            “Michael? It’s 4:50 in the morning.”

            “Yes, Mrs. Toro, I realize that but this is, like, really important.”

            “Whatever it is, I’m sure it could have waited a couple more hours. Now please, honey, go back to – “

            “I’m really super sorry about this dude, but I, like, _have_ to talk to Ray right now!” Over the line, he heard a deep sigh and then some shuffling. A couple more seconds and Ray’s high voice trickled through from the other line.

            “Mikes? What time is it?”

            “Dude, I need you to do something and it’s, like, _essential_!”

***

_So this was Frank’s house_ , Ray mused as he dumped his bike on the curb. In the window, he quickly checked his reflection. T-shirt? Straight. Shoes? On. Fro? Fluffy.

            Frank’s house was a thousand times nicer than the ones he was used to seeing. While he lived in a run down one-story shack, Frank’s house was spacious and had a wide porch running around the sides. Unlike the yellowing brittle grass that covered most of the lawns he saw, this one was immaculately kept with neatly trimmed rose hedges growing under the windows.Ray carefully noted the shiny Mercedes Benz in the driveway and reassessed his process of presentation towards Frank’s parents. A few deep breaths later and it was go time.

            The brass doorbell clanged louder than he was expecting, echoing all across the silent street. He strained his ears for any movement within the white walls. Two more rings later, and he spotted a light flick on in a second story window.  The intimidating door swung open to reveal an equally intimidating man. Though he had presumably just been woken, Mr. Iero maintained an air of distinction and austerity. Ray did not allow himself to be fooled by the slippers. Not a single bit of him seemed to be out of order, much like the lawn. Even his mustache remained finely combed. Through sharp dark eyes that did not resemble Frank’s in the slightest, Mr. Iero surveyed Ray with a mixture of intrigue and annoyance. Instinctively, Ray stood a little taller.

            “Mr. Iero, sir?” Ray asked as confidently as he could.

            “Yes, and who are you?” Mr. Iero replied.

            “My name is Raymond Toro, sir. I believe we’ve seen each other right before. I need to speak to your son Frank right away.”

            The moment of recognition was tangible, and the man instinctively placed his hand on the door. “Frank isn’t seeing anyone at the moment, Raymond. I’ll have you leave now.”

            “But, sir, this is actually _very_ important!” Ray protested.

            “Frank is not available for whatever it is, even if you had come at a reasonable hour. Now, please, leave my house at once,” he answered again in a firm tone. When he tried to close the door, though, Ray stuck out an arm.

            “Please. My friend is kind of in trouble and – “

            “And _Frank_ cannot do anything about that now, please, stand back.” Both of them were maintaining an icy politeness, though Ray was sure that Mr. Iero would want nothing more than to squash him like a fly.

            “Anthony? Who’s at the door?” From inside, a diminutive woman with graying hair stood at the top of the stairs. She seemed uncomfortable in the situation. Ray recognized her as Frank’s mother. “May we help you, young man?” she asked Ray in a tone that implied a slightly warmer personality.

            “I am very sorry for disturbing you at the time, but my friend _needs_ to see Frank right now, Mrs. Iero,” Ray appealed to her.

            “This young man is harassing me! You are to leave at once!” Mr. Iero commanded.

            “Please, ma’am. I know that you don’t want Frank seeing any of us right now. I understand, but Gerard isn’t doing well at all and – Frank!” It was at that very moment that Frank himself came from a room out of sight as if he had been listening in up until that very moment.

            “Gerard? What happened to Gerard?” he asked quickly.

            “Frank, why aren’t you in bed?” Mr. Iero demanded.

            “Ray.” Frank stared intently at his friend. “What happened to Gerard?”

            “I told you not to say his name in this house,” Mr. Iero growled.

            “I don’t know,” Ray answered Frank. “Mikey called me this morning and said something about finding him in the street. He’s not doing well and Mikey was freaking the hell out.”

            “You’re going to leave right now or I am going to call the police!” Mr. Iero threatened.

            Ray opened his mouth to protest but Frank started talking before him. “Dad,” Frank stated calmly. “I need to go see Gerard right now.”

            “Frank!” his father spluttered. “Look at this… this low life! Frank, you are so much better than these boys. They found him in the _street_! I absolutely forbid you from going to see this boy!”

            “You don’t know – “ Frank tried to interrupt but his father kept talking.

            “These freaks will not alienate you any more, son! They’ve taught you to lie and deceive your own parents! And you,” he said, addressing Ray this time, “showing up in the _middle of the night_ to take him God knows where!” Mr. Iero’s fury seemed to overcome him to the point where he could no longer speak.

            “Mom…” Frank pleaded and ran up the stairs to her. She seemed to flinch away from her son the closer he got, but as soon as he laid a hand on her shoulder, they both seemed to change quite suddenly. The two of them conferred for a long while on top of the stairs while Mr. Iero and Ray glared at each other. Finally, Mrs. Iero walked downstairs with her son and pulled on a coat.

            “Oh you can’t be – you can’t possibly be _seriously_ taking him to see this _freak_ ,” Mr. Iero hissed at his wife. “After all, after _all_ that – “

            She looked him sternly in the eyes and replied, “Frank will be allowed to go to Gerard’s house for exactly thirty minutes. I will take him. After that, we will come home and get ready to visit with Father Zachary. There will be no need to wait up for us.” She turned to Frank. “You are to be on your very best behavior, understood? I will be in the next room. And I want to meet his mother.” Frank nodded. Finally, Mrs. Iero turned to the door. “Thank you for stopping by Raymond. It was a great pleasure to see you again. Now, you best be getting home.”

            Everyone stood a little dumbfounded for a split second before they jumped into action. Mr. Iero seemed to fade to the sides of the scene while Frank and Mrs. Iero attempted to make themselves presentable. In just a few minutes, the three of them had exited the house.

            “Oh,” Mrs. Iero sighed from the porch. “I’ll have to clip my rose hedges again.”

***

            Frank was going to explode. He was literally going to explode. The whole sorry-about-the-guts-on-your-porch-light explode kind of deal. This all was going to kill him. He swore it was.

            Take his mother for example. There she was, looking more like the homeless lady on the corner of Casper Street than whoever he had previously believed his mother to be, acting like this was her most natural behavior. In fact, everything he had ever thought about his mother seemed to be called into question within a span of exactly five minutes. Dissipating with his perception of his mother was any sort of confidence he had coerced himself into feeling on the drive there. Honestly, he was terrified. He didn’t know what to expect from Gerard, what he would look like, or how he would treat him. In fact, Frank realized he hardly knew what was going on.

            Before his mother had a chance to ring the doorbell, Mikey swung the door open. He was sporting an old soccer jersey and slightly too short sweatpants with red hearts all over them. He looked unlike Frank usually knew him to be, with dripping wet hair and no glasses though he still kept his face tipped up slightly out of habit. Frank knew his mother well enough to know that she had begun questioning what she had gotten herself into. She cleared her throat politely.

            “Michael, yes?” she inquired. Mikey, though giving off the impression of deep exhaustion, offered his hand and greeted her.

            “It’s great to meet you, Mrs. Iero,” he said. After they were finished shaking hands, the three of them all seemed to stop, waiting for another to say something. Mikey took it upon himself to direct the conversation.

            “Uhh, let’s see. Would you care for some coffee?” Mikey asked, directing Frank’s mother to the kitchen. They all seemed to be a bit out of place. Mikey and Frank hadn’t spoken in weeks, and Mrs. Iero was taking an awfully large leap of faith allowing her son to see Gerard. An awkward silence ensued while Mikey busied himself with a coffee pot.

            “Umm, Gerard?” Frank finally asked. He was sure he was going to puke.

            “Downstairs.” Mikey’s eyes flicked to Mrs. Iero’s face which did not reveal much. “He was asking for you a little while ago.”

            “What happened to him?” Frank asked. Mikey filled up the pot and placed it into the machine before answering.

            “Now, Mrs. Iero, I want you to know right off that my brother is a really, really great guy. But right now he’s not doing very well, so I need you to not base your opinions off of what I’m going to say next because… he’s a good guy. Honestly.” He turned to Frank. “I found him in the street outside our house about an hour ago. Maybe more. It’s getting pretty hazy already. It seems like he spent the night with some… previous acquaintances of ours. I don’t know what happened to him for certain because he’s not talking much. I don’t know if he’ll talk more to you. It sort of looks like he drank too much but… I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this.” At that, Frank immediately made a move for the basement door, but Mikey caught his arm. “Don’t let him fall asleep, okay? I’ve been keeping him awake because I’m afraid if he falls asleep he won’t… wake up.”

            Frank throat constricted until all he could do was nod. He again made for the basement but he thought of his mom and turned around once again. She gazed upon him and in that instant he saw all the hurt he had truly caused his parents. Not just in the past months, but in his whole life. All they had given up for him, all they had done to try to raise him and he had broken their hearts.

            “I don’t know if I can trust you to go down there alone,” she told him finally. “And I don’t know if I can trust you either,” she told Mikey. “I feel rather foolish. But… this boy sounds like he is in need, and I know that we must never turn down those in need.”

            “Thank you,” Frank told her. “Really… thank you.” He hoped that she understood that he meant not just for this but for everything.

            Frank rushed into the basement. The first thing that hit him was the overwhelming stench of it all, the alcohol and despair and everything else. There were scuffmarks on the walls and pictures torn to pieces littering the floor. Frank’s stomach was wringing itself dry just standing in the doorway.

            “Gerard?” he asked, for the boy was nowhere in sight. “Hello?” Frank scoured the room for places he could be, but Gerard was nowhere in sight. At last, he noticed the pulsating light from the bathroom and nudged the door open. Curled up in the bathtub, naked from the waist up, was Gerard. At the sight, Frank fell to his knees and bent over the boy.

            “Gerard?” he crooned. “It’s me. Frank.”

            “Frankie?” Gerard asked.

            “Yeah… me.” Gerard tried to move closer to Frank, his eyes only halfway open like he was lost within a dream. Frank moved to hold him closer, but the bathtub pressed into his stomach and pushed against his elbows. Instead, he climbed into the sweet smelling tub and wrapped his arms firmly around the deflated boy next to him. Gerard’s skin was damp and cool, and Frank found his presence soothing like water over a burn he did not realize he had sustained. He buried his head into Gerard’s neck, wet hair tickling his face.

            “What did you do to yourself?” he choked.

            “Frankie, Frankie, Frankie,” Gerard sighed and nuzzled into him. Gerard seemed to move as if in a trance, and Frank had no idea if he’d have any recollection of the events in the morning.

            “What happened, Gerard?”

            “I was so scared down there in the dark, Frankie. There were wolves coming to eat me.” Wolves? What was he talking about? Frank wanted to run as fast as he could – anywhere – into the kitchen and yell, blame Mikey, blame his mother, blame God because of how broken Gerard had become and how much it was hurting him.

            “I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” he said and reached his arm tightly around Gerard’s middle. _I didn’t know how much I hurt you. It was hurting me too. It was hurting me so much._

            “And… there was more, but it’s all gone. Angels. I think… but they went all wrong. I think I made them go all wrong.”

            “Gerard, you’re not making any sense.”

            “Scared. And ashamed. I was so ashamed.” He hid his face away from Frank

            “What were you ashamed of?” Frank asked, reaching up to stroke Gerard’s face.

            “Everything.” Gerard was shaking now and he reached an arm around Frank to try to still himself. Driblets of water were seeping through Frank’s clothes but he was hardly bothered by it. The smell of Gerard was not his usual smell, or rather new smells piled on top of his usual ones. He smelled of bathwater and shampoo and other sweet clean things that soothed him, but every time Gerard exhaled too hard and he caught the acrid stench of vomit and troubled thoughts, Frank’s throat clenched tight again.

            “Are you mad at me?” Gerard asked in a childlike tone.

            “No.”

            “Yeah you are.”

            “Why am I mad at you?”

            “Because I’m a fuck up.”

            “You’re not a fuck up.”

            “Mhm,” Gerard mumbled. “I think Mikey’s mad at me.

            “No, he isn’t.”

            “He should be,” Gerard sighed. There was nothing melancholy about his voice. It seemed like he was too far off in his dreamland to quite connect with melancholy. Numb. That’s what he seemed. Just numb. They sat in silence again, Frank drawing circles on Gerard’s back.

            “What are you doing?” Gerard finally asked.

            “Praying,” Frank answered and he was. He hadn’t noticed that he was until Gerard asked him. He guessed it wasn’t praying in the traditional sense of the word, but everything in his life at the moment seemed to not be following the traditional sense of things. There was that same sort of calm that he felt in a church, the serene quiet and the aching of his very being. There were no words in his mind, not even ideas. Just prayers.

            Gerard ‘hmm’-ed against Frank.  
           

            “What did you do to yourself?” Frank asked Gerard in a whisper, afraid that if he spoke any louder his voice would break.

            “I drank.” Gerard hardly considered his words. “A lot. And then I stole lots of Xanax from Bert. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not. And I’m tired. Can I sleep yet?”

            “No, Gerard, you can’t sleep.”

            “At least I didn’t have to get my stomach pumped.”

            “When did that happen to you?”

            “When’d what happen to me?” Frank sighed and adjusted them so he was staring straight into Gerard’s eyes. They were still the same sharp hazel tone. At least that was reassuring.

            “I guess I just have to remember that beneath all this you’re still my Gerard. I mean… beneath all this you’re still… Gerard. Just like, the same Gerard that was my friend. Not my Gerard,” Frank said.

            Gerard laughed airily. “I don’t really feel like Gerard though.” Frank didn’t really know what else to say after that so he just rubbed his nose against Gerard’s and pulled the two of them closer. They lay like that until Mikey came in to get Frank. Gerard had lightly dozed off but he still said goodbye to Frank wistfully.

            Inside the kitchen, Mikey and his mother were silently sipping their coffee and peering at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Before Frank could say anything, however, they heard a key scrape in the lock and Donna entered after what appeared to be her night shift at work.

            “Mikey? Why are you up? Who’s – Frank!” she exclaimed. “What the hell is going on? Why didn’t you call me?” Frank tried to tune Mikey’s even voice as he explained what had happened to his mother, as it was almost too much to bear hearing. Donna’s shriek pierced his ears as she clutched her chest and fell into a chair.

            “Frankie, honey,” Donna exclaimed in her gravely voice and grasped his hands. “How are you?” she asked. Frank could not believe how friendly she was being to him even though it was basically his fault that her son tried to drink himself into a coma. He cleared his throat in response, knowing full well that as the mother of Mikey Way she was probably used to getting even less than that. “You were down there just now? Is he alright?” Before he could answer any of her questions, he was tugging him down into a forceful hug. When she finally released him, they all looked at him for answers.

            “Well, he’s talking more, I guess. Who’s Bert?” Frank asked. Donna looked confused but Mikey looked downwards in shame.

            “He and Gerard used to know each other. They were close, in a… creepy way. I thought he stopped seeing him though.” The implications in Mikey’s words were evident.

            Frank cleared his throat. “He said he took some stuff from him. Xanax, I think. And uhh, drank.” They sat in silence, sipping their coffee, for what more could be said at the time? The dread had exited Frank’s body and now all he felt was an eerie sense of loss. Donna phoned Elena and left her a message saying Gerard was in trouble, but giving no specifics. His mother and Donna spoke in hushed tones while Mikey and Frank watched the sky get paler and paler through the kitchen window. That was the thing about the New Jersey sky. The sun never rose; the sky moved from dark shades of night to lighter colors like adding water to paint until suddenly it was daytime. They all stayed in that state for a while, Gerard and Mikey’s father finally coming down but not asking what had happened. Frank’s mother politely said her farewells, saying that by this time they could catch the early morning mass. Frank awkwardly waved to Mikey on his way out and Donna enveloped him in yet another bone crushing hug.

            On the Way’s porch, he and his mother stood, ready to face the new day. 

***

Chapter 13: In Which Elena Returns and Brian Becomes Useful

            The sun was peering through the clouds when Elena swooped in like a miracle, waving her hands and shawl fluttering. It was only later that they found out it was their father who had called her while Donna stayed by Gerard’s beside. Elena frowned and tutted over Mikey first, giving him warm hugs and telling him that he had been very brave. She assigned their father of dumping out all their alcohol down the bathtub drain then took over Donna’s post by Gerard’s bedside.

            Gerard had been in and out of consciousness for the duration of the morning, mumbling and getting up to pull more blankets over himself. When he woke up fully, Elena didn’t say anything, just handed him a glass of water, which he downed in a few seconds. He hoisted himself up, struggling under the weight of his shame and stared at his grandmother, waiting for her to say something.

            “Come here,” she offered and enveloped him in a hug only a grandmother can give, one that made him feel safe and like he was a child again.

            “That better?” she asked. He nodded. “Good,” Elena said then smacked Gerard upside the head. “What were you thinking Gerard? I get a call from your mother in absolute hysterics saying something about you damning yourself into this hole then turning up half dead in the streets! And you know how your mother gets. What are you trying to do, kill us?”

            “No,” he said, kneading base of his palms into his eyes. “I just sort of – “

            “Gerard, I know what you ‘just sort of’. I’m just here to smack some sense into you. You’re a smart kid, but sometimes you can be such a dumbass, kid. Now what happened?”

            “Can I not talk about it?”

            “No.”

            Gerard sort of thought about it for a second then started the whole story. He didn’t leave anything else, just plowed through every single gruesome detail from biology class to Frank’s parents to the alcohol and Bert to the bathtub. He talked and talked all the way until sunlight flooded through the window and his father brought down toast for the both of them. With a clearer head, it was like he was seeing his own words from a different perspective. As soon as they left his lips, a bit of their intense weight seemed to fly from his body. He still felt their ache but realized that they had no control over him. Elena listened through it all, never letting her attention drift and nodding along with acute perception.

            “Did you love him?” Elena finally asked. Like Gerard hadn’t been asking himself that very same question this whole time. Like he hadn’t kept himself up at night wondering what love felt like and what Frank felt like and where they intertwined and shot away from each other. Did he love him? Does he love him?

            “No,” he finally sighed. “But. But it’s like… I could have. I would have if… if there was more time.  I didn’t ever get the chance to love him. I wish I could have loved him.” He buried his face in his hands and Elena rubbed his back soothingly. “I’m scared, Elena. I was scared then and I’m scared now.”

            “Gerard,” she said, taking his face in her hands. “Gerard, you listen to me right now. I saw the way you looked at him and heard the way you talked about him, and he was a damn good kid. Guys like that aren’t everyday, Gerard. So of course the world isn’t going to be on your side. That’s expected. But _you,_ at least, have to be on your _own_ side.”

            Gerard pulled away.  “But there’s nothing I can do. And besides, he said he's okay. If he’s okay, I’ll be okay.”

            “Trust me, honey. He’s not okay.”

            “But… what can I do? There’s nothing I can do!”

            “If I ever knew a kid that could do something, it would be you. You’ll come up with something.”

***

            That night, Gerard locked himself in his basement. He didn’t let anyone in, not even Mikey. For a good solid five minutes, he just stood in the middle of his room and really looked at it for the first time in a very, very long time. Then, he broke. He grabbed all the clothes off his bedroom floor and threw them into his laundry basket, snatched up handfuls of used tissues and stuffed them into the trashcan. He tore all his comics off his shelves and organized them in neat stacks before grabbing a bottle of Windex he didn’t think his family owned and wiping down the shelves too. He ripped everything off his walls, discarded the art he didn’t like anymore. He vacuumed his carpet and screamed at the top of his lungs over the noise. He couldn’t stop. Gerard wasn’t even sure why he was doing it. Just kept cleaning and organizing and tearing and fixing.

            It took him all through Sunday night and a lie about being sick on Monday until he was finished. He hadn’t eaten or slept or changed his clothes. He dropped to his knees on the clean carpet. Had the basement always been this big? "I’ll make it okay," Gerard whispered to himself. "I'll make it all okay." He flicked on the lamp that he remembered through hazy drunken memories Mikey was so infatuated with.

            There was only one thing to do now.

            With shaking hands, he picked up the notebook Ray had given him for a birthday two years ago; all used pages full of angsty poetry and angry drawings torn out. Almost like it was new. He sank down against the wall. White blank page, dark black ink, and red beating heart.

            So he put pen to paper and bled.

***

            Mikey sat at the kitchen table. It had been two days. Two days. Sure he had thought about going down there to see Gerard. But his brotherly intuition was taking control on this one, so he would give it one more day. Then he’d go down. Just to be sure. He knocked his knees together and worried. But… no. He would hear noise down there occasionally. The vacuum cleaner… and then the next day a crash and some cursing… no. He heard things coming from down there. Gerard wouldn’t… he wouldn’t or he already would have. Mikey knew.

            He stared blankly at the math textbook open in front of him. Mikey was usually good with numbers, the ways they fit together, and the ways they didn’t. But he couldn’t concentrate. He was getting jittery and anxious. If only he could talk to Gerard about his problems with his brother, about how he really was getting worried now. Gerard would get it. Gerard would know what to say to him to make him feel better.

            Mikey missed his friend too. Of course he missed Frank. They all missed Frank. Ray never smiled quite as much anymore because Frank was gone and there was no one to talk to about guitar. Bob called Mikey on Saturday and even his voice sounded emptier without knowing that Frank and Tula were somewhere close by.

            The kitchen phone rang shrilly. Alicia. Thank God.

            "How's he doing, Mikey?" she asked. He ran a hand through his hair, untouched for two days.

            "I don't know. Elena came over a couple days ago and they talked for a really long time and then he locked himself in the basement. He's been in there for two days."

            "Doing what?"

            "I heard the vacuum cleaner one night but it's gotten quiet lately. I don't think he's been eating or sleeping."

            "But you're not going down there?"

            "I can't. It's like... it's like I'm not supposed to. He's got to come up." Alicia was quiet on the other line. He could practically see her biting her lip while she chose her words carefully. "What?" he asked.

            "You've got a whole lotta faith in him, you know?"

            "He's worth having faith in."

            "He'll be happy again one day. I know it."

            "I know you do."

            "So will Frank. Frank'll be happy too."

            "Yeah." They sat in each other's silence, listening to the breath on the other end of the line.

            "What are you doing right now?" Mikey asked.

            "Just reading some _Catcher in the Rye_. It makes you know stuff."

            "What do you mean?"

            "Things always make more sense after I read _The Catcher in the Rye._ "

            "That makes no sense."

            "Nope, I guess not. I have to go eat some dinner now. I'll see you soon?"

            "Maybe."

            "Don't be hard on yourself. Things are going to be clear soon."

            "How do you know?"

            "I know."

_Click._  She loved to disappear in a puff of black smoke. Alicia. He wished he could see the world through her mind, all the bass notes in the clouds and the secrets in the wind. Living on intuition and feeling. With Mikey it was all cerebral.

            And then.

            "Hey."

            "Gerard!" His eyes widened at his brother. He expected him to look like hell. It was almost on the contrary. He had dark circles under his eyes and was looking rather pale, but his face. His face was different. It was... clearer.

            "What...?" Mikey couldn't think of the right question, but his older brother still knew what he was asking.

            "I cleaned my room."

            "Oh."

            "And… this." Gerard held up a black and white notebook modestly. Mikey took it and peeked inside. There were pages and pages full of abstract drawings that formed into pictures that formed into words that formed into... lyrics? Crossed out and rewritten and crossed out again. The last page written in had the final product, penned neatly and confidently.

            "This is... yeah."

            "I know." And they both knew. Things were clear.

            "Do we have any Pop Tarts?” Gerard asked. “I'm starving."

***

            Surprised didn’t quite cover what Brian Schechter felt when he opened the door on Wednesday afternoon to find the three most bizarre boys from school on his front porch: Gerard and Mikey Way and their friend Ray Toro. This was really for several reasons. No one ever saw them out of school aside from maybe smoking silently in some alleyway downtown or stealing tapes from shitty record stores then throwing them out in the trashcan half a block down. There also happened to be the fact that Brian had brought about a rather not good fate for the three of them (well, four at that time but he never saw the short one anymore and never really took the time to learn his name.) It wasn’t like it mattered all that much anyways. Not really. He was just trying to get the cool boys to like him. And maybe let him try out for the lacrosse team even if it meant that he’d just be an alternate. But it meant ratting on them. Whatever though. It’s not like Brian owed them anything, right?

            “You owe us a favor, Schechter,” Mikey stated.

            “You’re not going to tackle me again, are you?” Brian asked nervously.

            “No we’re not gonna tackle you, stupid,” Mikey sighed and crossed his arms. “I hear you have recording equipment down here.”

            “Uhh, yeah, a little stuff. Why…?”

            “You owe us a favor, and we want to record something. Call it even?” Ray said.

            “I don’t even _know_ you guys!”

            “Well you know what?” Gerard piped up. “You caused a lot of trouble for us, so now you’re going to help us fix this fucking mess.”

            “By letting us record our thing,” Ray added.

            “Yeah, the thing,” Gerard said.

            Brian looked between the three of them and the instrument cases that sat next to Ray.

            “My mom’s not really here right now,” he said in one last failed attempt to shake them off. Instead, Mikey just picked up his bass and stepped inside, the other two close behind. When Brian made an offended noise, he just replied, “You were just gonna let us in anyways. Also, we might need some drums. Ray, you still got Bob’s number?”

***

            It was the first warm day of spring when they decided to execute their final plan. Gerard thought back to the first day where they thought of revenge in the basement. He would never have expected that this was where he would end up, in the library and clutching a cassette tape in his right pocket. Yet here he was. Gerard was hyper aware of the cassette in his pocket, like all the emotional weight was still trapped inside its plastic case. In the end it was obvious what to call the song, the words scrawled on top of it in sharpie. It had never been anything else.

            Because Ray was the technology genius, he was the one who figured out how to hack into the PA speakers while Mikey distracted the librarian. Gerard went over his speech to Frank in his head, making sure the words were just right. Brian passed the open doors and nodded inconspicuously at them from the empty hallway while everyone else was in class. It was their signal. It was time.

            Mikey joined them around the desk where they all stared at the cassette.

            “You ready?” Ray asked Gerard.

            “No. Yes. No. Sure,” he said. Mikey popped in the cassette and cranked up the volume. For a very tense second the sound system crackled to life, and Gerard could almost imagine the students rearing their ugly heads to hear what they expected to be the detached voice of their principal. Instead, they got an earful of Ray’s guitar blasting throughout the whole school. Quickly, Gerard hid the tape player behind a potted plant, and they ran into the hallway in an effort not to look suspicious.

            Gerard heard himself start singing at top volume. “Well if you wanted honesty/That’s all you had to say.” He sounded kind of cool to himself actually. More assertive and loud. It was and wasn’t him at the exact same time. “I never want to let your down/Or have you go ‘it’s better off this way’!” He wondered what Frank was thinking. Gerard didn’t think that the nuns would be able to recognize his voice from the tape, but Frank would. There was no doubt that, even though hundreds of kids were being invaded by it, this song was for him and only him.

            The effect was immediate. Kids in classrooms were covering their ears and yelling while nuns attempted to maintain control. A hoard of nuns all rushed out of their classrooms, failing to find the source of the noise while the kids began to peek out doors. “Remember when you broke you foot/From jumping off the second floor?/I’m not okay!” He had to keep himself from singing along under his breath, but he could still feel the punch of each word. God, he hoped his plan would work. By the time the first chorus ended, Gerard was surrounded by absolute chaos. Students were running out of classrooms, littering papers and bags everywhere. A fight had broken out far down the hall between some jocks and nerds while others simply shoved themselves around, yelling nonsensically over the music. For once, the three of them weren’t sticking out of the crowd and so they allowed themselves to blend back against the walls and take in their great creation. This time, even Mikey was smiling.

            “I need your car keys,” Gerard yelled over the music.

            “Why?” Ray asked.

            “I’m going.”

            “Are you…?” Ray made some explicatory movements.

            “There’s somewhere I’ve gotta be,” he answered. Ray tossed him the keys, and Gerard sprinted down the stairs and out to the front of the school. He stood in front of the gates for what seemed like an eternity. He could faintly hear the song still blasting from the inside (“You said you’d read me like a book/But the pages are all torn and frayed.”) Finally, he saw him. Frank walked carefully out the wooden doors, free from suspicious because of the riot inside. And suddenly they were facing each other. They had both been focusing on the task of reaching each other that it hadn’t even occurred to either of them what they were going to say.

            “Hi,” Frank said. He had a little smile on his face and his eyes were wide.

            “Hi,” Gerard replied.

            “So,” Frank said as he tucked a chunk of hair behind his ear while shuffling his feet, “That was you.”

            “And the other guys. I mean, they played the instruments, but I wrote the lyrics. And Ray helped with the guitar part. Yeah. And Mikey. We all wrote it. But, uhh, I wrote the lyrics.” _Shut up,_ Gerard thought to himself. He was always a nervous talker.

            “It’s… umm it’s really cool. I like it a lot,” Frank answered and half reached a hand towards Gerard’s but he dropped it halfway.

            “Thanks. Brian helped us record it.”

            Frank’s nervousness fell away for a second and it was just like they were having a normal conversation. “Brian Schechter? Really?”

            “Yeah!” Gerard answered and they giggled a little. A breeze played with Frank’s hair. It had gotten longer in the time they had spent apart. It looked clean and soft, and Gerard really wanted to run his hands through it. “I… I wrote it for you, you know.” He dropped his head.

            “I know.”

            Gerard perked up and stepped forward. “You do?” he asked hopefully.

            “Yeah.” They both sprung apart in the silence, unconsciously having leaned towards each other. Both of them kept their eyes down watching their hands inch closer in the newly created distance. Painstakingly, Gerard’s eyes never leaving their hands, he reached closer and closer until their palms lay against each other, and it felt like home.

            “Look,” Gerard began. “I – “

            He didn’t get to finish his sentence before Frank was pressing up against him, kissing him deeply. Their noses smushed against each other, but Gerard didn’t care because all of a sudden he couldn’t get close enough to Frank. They grappled with their arms, Frank’s hands cupping Gerard’s face and Gerard holding Frank’s shoulders. He could practically feel the crease in between Frank’s eyebrows, the relief so strong that it was almost painful. Frank sighed against his lips, like he had been starving.

            “Oh God,” Frank gasped between bruising kisses. “I missed you so much.”

            “I know,” Gerard hummed against his jaw and stroked his back.

            “No, no,” he gasped. “I’m so sorry.” He pinned Gerard against the low wall and licked at his lips. It felt like Frank was trying to eat him alive.

            “Frank.” Gerard pulled him back and gave him his best beautiful smile. Not a fake smile, not a smirk, not a lost smile, but a real “I am here, right now” smile. And slowly, Frank smiled too.

            “Do you want to go home?” Gerard asked.

            “Oh _hell_ yes,” Frank grinned.

***

            Gerard was finding it difficult to focus on the road in front of him. It wasn’t justhis music was still lost in his ears, and it wasn’t just that Gerard was a shitty driver. Frank’s hands, the hands he had been longing for ever since they last touched him, the hands that he still knew barely anything about, the hands that made art and passion come out of a hollow piece of wood and string, were roaming all over him as he drove as fast as he could home. They were first on his leg then his shoulder then his hair and his face. The rough and calloused tips of his fingers scratched at his skin then the smoother texture of his palm swept over the same spots.

            “You’re hot,” Frank giggled. Gerard could feel the blood surging through him like if his heart beat at the speed of light then they would get home faster. He reached one hand across his pulse self-consciously. Frank laughed again. “You’re hot like that too, but I was talking about you being hot in another way,” he murmured and leaned over to kiss him, cradling his face in his beautiful hands. Gerard’s own hands dug into the flesh of Frank’s waist beneath his uniform pants. They entwined their mouths, the quiet slurping sounds the only other sounds besides the fabric of their uniforms rubbing against each other. “So,” _kiss_ , “fucking,” _kiss_ , “hot,” _kiss_. He kissed the corner of Gerard’s mouth right as a car behind them honked loudly. They exchanged a look and laughed before speeding off past the traffic light.

            Gerard was having an especially hard time unlocking the door as Frank was now literally all over him. Gerard knew his dad wouldn’t be home until late, which meant that they would have the whole house to themselves. He relayed this information to Frank. In response, Frank wriggled under Gerard’s arm, which was busy unlocking the door so he was in the small space between the wood and the older boy.

            “Excellent,” he said, somewhere in between glee and seduction (Gerard had no idea how that combination even existed, but what the hell, it was Frank). Frank then reached a hand over and turned the doorknob, letting the two of them inside. They stumbled in kissing each other, Frank pulling Gerard in by his wrists. Gerard pushed him a little harder than he meant to against the wall. He couldn’t get enough of Frank, couldn’t hold him for long enough, couldn’t pull him close enough. “I – “ he tried, but Frank pawed his way beneath Gerard’s t-shirt and was sucking greedily on his lower lip. Wow, that felt amazing. Frank moved down to his neck and licked long stripes from his collarbone to his jaw. “Don’t stop,” Gerard managed in a strangled tone. His voice was lower and goddamn sexier than he expected it to be. He could feel his hard on pushing against the fabric of his pants.

            “Wasn’t planning on it,” Frank whispered and that was what did it for Gerard. He yanked Frank along to the basement, trying to kiss him while doing so, so their noses bumped and he slobbered over Frank’s chin. They didn’t even bother closing the basement door.

            In a second, Frank was stretched out on Gerard’s bed with his arms above his head as he yanked his shirt off without even undoing the buttons. He was skinny, but not bony. There was just enough fat on him so Gerard’s fingers could sink into the soft skin above the ‘v’ of his hips. He liked that place where he could run his thumbs over Frank’s pelvic bones, which dipped inward ever so slightly. He ran his hands up and down Frank’s pale sides while he kissed his way along every inch of his neck and chest. Frank squirmed and panted and did everything else that made him so goddamn sexy. His jet-black bangs obscured most of his eyes

            “I missed you so much,” he murmured into the crook of Frank’s neck and shoulder. He left little bite marks along his shoulder and loved the way they looked against his skin. Frank wrapped both his hands around Gerard’s neck and pulled him down to meet his lips. When they pulled back, Gerard smoothed the hair out of his boyfriend’s face.

            “I missed you more than you will ever know,” Frank whispered and Gerard felt like he was seeing Frank for the first time. He was all eyes, forever and ever, so dark and full of happiness and lust and wilderness and love. He was everything and Gerard didn’t have a single word for him. He was everywhere.

            Frank flipped him over on his back and started undoing his shirt buttons.

            “What are you doing?” Gerard blurted.

            “Getting you naked,” Frank hummed.

            “But you can’t do that.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I’m ugly!”

            Frank pondered that one for a moment, very seriously, before shooting forward and kissing him as hard as he could. When he caught his lower lip between his teeth and tugged, Gerard whined in the back of his throat. Frank then rocked forward and rolled their hips together. Gerard was so focused on Frank’s hips that he didn’t notice his shirt was completely unbuttoned until Frank was running his hands and tongue all along his bare torso.

            “Hey!” he yelped. He already knew that he was fat and ugly. He didn’t need to compare himself to Frank who was gorgeous and _perfect_ to know that. But then Frank pulled back and braced himself over Gerard on all fours, heavy breathing and swollen lips and there his eyes were. Dark and deep and pupils blown. They were eating him up, every single inch of him. Gerard’s skin was hot and he felt like he needed to crawl out of it the way Frank was looking at him, but in a good way. Waves of warmth fell on him from above.

            “Gerard,” he moaned, scraping his nails along his collarbone down to his crotch. Frank palmed Gerard’s pants until he groaned and bit his lip from pleasure. Neither of them can quite catch their breath and it was all tightly squeezed eyes and panting from there. As soon as he assembled his horribly scrambled teenage thoughts, though, Gerard peered down at his exposed torso. Though he had seen Frank mostly naked, he had always been very careful to keep himself covered. His skin fell over the waistband of his pants, and little rolls of fat were exposed. Shame washed over him at the sigh of his flawed body.

            Gerard scrambled to cover himself up, and Frank ceased his action abruptly.

            “Was I hurting you?” Frank asked immediately.

            “What? Oh, God no! It’s just…” Gerard didn’t even know what it just was. Frank slowly reached out and pulled Gerard’s arms away from his body. While Gerard recoiled from the sad sight of himself, Frank reached forwards and pressed the palms of his hands over his chest. He began kissing Gerard’s bare skin, massaging his lower back, and – if he was feeling daring enough – nibbling down in some places. And with those small actions, Gerard found himself relaxing into Frank’s hands.

            “Do… do you like this?” Frank asked, peering up through his bangs with those same endless eyes. Gerard nodded, almost frozen by urges to do anything to Frank, so he took his face in both his hands and kissed him. They spent a while just like that, holding each other and exploring each other with their hands. Up until that point, aside from their one drunken escapade, this was the most they had ever done with each other. Gerard wouldn’t lie to himself; he was terrified of going forward, yet at the same time it was all he wanted to do.

            “Can, can I take this off?” he asked, reaching his hands up to Frank’s hips and pulling at the material separating them. Frank closed his eyes and nodded. Taking off someone else’s pants was more difficult than it sounded. They moved gracelessly, struggling against the pants until, finally, Gerard shoved them down to his ankles. Frank took the moment to slide off his shoes and socks as well and Gerard did the same. Straightening up, Gerard found Frank lying over the bed horizontally with his legs hanging off the side.

            “Oh my…” Gerard managed before climbing over him. “What do you want to,” he bit his lip, “you know, do?”

            Frank exhaled quickly and said, “I don’t know… what is there to do?” Gerard felt himself inwardly smile at Frank’s innocent yet somehow forward nature. Not a single bit of him was ashamed. Gerard found courage in this.

            “Well,” he started, pushing Frank’s legs open to which he received some small groaning. “I can do this.” He tugged Frank’s boxers down and wrapped his fist around the other boy’s cock. Twisting his wrist around the base, Gerard felt Frank tense up. “Like this?” he whispered, licking his palm and stroking him slowly. Their breath intermingled, Gerard’s nervous and in between and Frank’s hot and heavy. Finally, Frank let a little moan escape his lips and thrust up into Gerard’s hands.

            “Or,” Gerard tried, “I can do this.” He waited until Frank was looking down at him before he dropped to his knees, savoring the feeling that Frank was watching him just like this, and pushed his thighs even further apart. First, he kissed the inside of Frank’s thigh, then licked from the inside all the way to his hipbone. Frank smelled not only like he did usually – a mixture of clean sheets and soda and a little like sage leaves – but also like sweat and that combination of sweet and sour things that smelled of sex.

            “You smell like sex, baby,” Gerard moaned, turned on by the whimpering noises Frank was making now and lowered his mouth around the tip of Frank’s dick. A small twitch in his hips and a mutter of, “Holy shit!” made Gerard smile inwardly before lowering himself a bit further. He circled his tongue around Frank’s dick and moaning into the taste and gentleness of Frank’s body. Groans and whines flowed through him and his body rocked up and down into Gerard’s mouth. Just the thought was getting Gerard half hard and he’d absentmindedly stroke himself from time to time.

            “Gerard, Gerard, Gerard!” Frank moaned now, dragging out the ending of his name in a way that shot straight through to the pit of Gerard’s stomach. Pulling off of Frank’s dick, Gerard tentatively reached a hand in between Frank’s legs to massage his balls.

            “Oh fucking hell! That feels _good_. Do that, ungh,” Frank managed and rocked faster into Gerard’s hand. Gerard licked a line all up Frank’s dick then lowered his mouth around it again, hollowing his cheeks around it. Frank groaned loudly, the hot slide of Gerard’s mouth around him, driving him insane. He could feel the air circle around his wet cock momentarily before Gerard slid down again and it felt fucking _amazing._ It was nothing like that one night in his bedroom in freshman year alone with the underwear catalogues. There was absolutely no shame in this. This was fucking beautiful. Gerard’s sweet noises around him, the air, the sweat trickling down his back… all of it was beautiful. Gerard’s fingers dug deep into his hips and thighs and he couldn’t believe how much want could possess a single person. “I want you so bad Gerard, I want oh fuck,” he choked out.

            In response, he felt Gerard’s mouth vibrate as he groaned around Frank’s dick and that fucking did it for him, sending into the realm where he could barely control himself anymore. His knees jerked tightly together around Gerard’s ears and he dug his fingers into Gerard’s hair and against his skull, pulling tightly. This only made Gerard groan more and speed up the process. Like a clock being wired too tight and he was going to fall apart from the tension. He was going to snap and twist and come apart all cogs and springs and broken glass because the only thing he could feel was Gerard. How hot his skin was, his breath, and he was going to crawl out of his own body. And with that he tensed up, a shiver running down his whole body and he soundlessly came into Gerard’s mouth.

            Gerard swallowed, a first for him, Frank’s come tasting pretty bizarre and also a little bit pleasant in a fucked up sort of way and not at all how he’d expected it to be. They both were panting like they had just ran a mile and though Gerard had felt his hard on waning, the sight of Frank fucking _writhing_ on the bed turned him on more than he thought possible. He crawled back on top of Frank, accidentally flopping a little on him and then rolled onto his side, flicking his tongue in and out of Frank’s mouth.

            “You taste weird,” Frank giggled.

            “I taste like you,” Gerard returned. “That’s not all we can do, you know,” he added mischievously, dragging a finger down Frank’s spine. Shivers jolted down Frank’s back as he felt the slide of Gerard against his own sweaty body. His hand continued to cup his ass, which surprised Frank a little. Like, wow, cute guy touching his butt. Stuff like this actually happens. He really shouldn’t have been that surprised by anything as that same boy had just had his mouth around his dick just a minute ago. He sighed and groaned as Gerard’s hands gripped and touched him in ways he couldn’t have allowed himself to imagine. Finally, Gerard slipped a finger over Frank’s hole.

            “Wait,” he managed and Gerard stopped immediately. Still, Frank couldn’t possibly come up with a way to explain why he didn’t want to without hurting Gerard’s feelings. It was just that… he wasn’t ready.

            Instead of saying that, Frank managed a smile and arched into Gerard, trying to roll him onto his back. “I want to do you,” he said. Gerard sighed into his mouth happily and rolled back without complaint. Though what Frank really wanted more than anything was for Gerard to touch him some more, another part of him wanted to see if he could make Gerard twitch and whimper the same way he did for Frank. Quite unsure of what he was doing, Frank ground their hips together before locating Gerard’s cock and stroking it. This caused an moan to spill from Gerard’s lips and Frank smiled inwardly. He kissed Gerard’s face as he started up a rhythm, eliciting more groans from him. He cautiously reached his other hand into Gerard’s hair as he kissed his neck, jaw, and collarbone. Gerard was thankfully talkative enough to sort of direct Frank in what he was doing. “Move ahh more your thumb like that again ooh yeah” he’d say or simply encourage him on with the occasional, “Fuck Frankie, fuck fuck fuck!” Frank finally dipped his head to kiss Gerard’s chest. He even got up the courage to lightly flick his tongue across his nipple and then again when Gerard whined happily. “I’m close I think Frankie ooh!” Gerard cried and Frank sped up his motions on Gerard’s dick. “Pull my hair, pull my hair, just like that, fuck that feels good,” Gerard babbled when Frank tugged accidentally on Gerard’s hair. Along with the rhythm of his hand, Frank tugged Gerard’s hair back and bit at his neck. “Oh shit oh shit Frank!” he yelped. Gerard’s fingers were on Frank’s back, dull nails pressing into his shoulder blades. One of his hands joined Frank’s on his dick and it wasn’t long until he came messily and loudly over both of them.

            As soon as he was finished they both sank down, exhausted, onto his bed. It took them both a little while to regain their breath, Frank still lying on top of Gerard. Eventually, he nudged Frank off so he could wipe his stomach and hand on the corner of a blanket. Frank followed suit, despite his misgivings about ever wanting to sleep in the bed again.

            “You wash these sheets right?” he asked.

            “What?” Gerard replied, looking thoroughly perplexed. “My sheets?”

            “Because that’s gross,” Frank continued. They both stared at each other, trying to figure out what the other meant before breaking out into breathless giggles.

            “Yeah, sometimes,” Gerard answered.

            They situated themselves more comfortably, Gerard pushed up against Frank’s back and Frank curving into him. Lying in their blissful post-orgasm state, they let the sweat dry off their skin and watched as the sunlight coming from the one window turned to a sparkling orange then deep gold.

            It was Frank who spoke first.

            “No one’s ever… touched me like that before.” He was glad he wasn’t facing Gerard because that was fucking embarrassing to say.

            “You’ve never done it before?” Gerard asked, not judgmental or rude, just curious.

            “Yeah but… I mean no one’s ever _touched_ me like that before.” He didn’t really know what he meant, but the words sounded right. Frank thought that maybe he was just trying to tell Gerard that he liked being in his arms.

            Instead of being met with a confused response, though, Gerard seemed to understand. “Me either. Like, the people I used to have sex with weren’t the same. It was just like they were fucking anyone. Not like they were fucking _me_. I like it better with you. It sort of makes sense.”

            And that was that.

***

            Gerard hadn’t realized that he had fallen asleep until he felt Frank nudging him awake.

            “What time is it?” Gerard asked lazily, not quite opening his eyes. It felt like he had slept for a week. “Do you need to call your parents? Water? Mikey says that sex really makes you tired but – “

            “Gerard,” Frank said. He finally became aware enough of his surroundings to see what was going on. Frank was straddling him, still fully naked, and surrounded by the halo of fading light. His eyes were searing.

            “Yeah?” he asked shakily. Frank cupped Gerard’s jaw with one hand and leaned in so he was an inch away from his face.

            “I want you to fuck me.” While Gerard had been sleeping, Frank thought this over for a very long time. The whole process used to seem pretty horrifying to him. It was overall painful and pretty creepy in Frank’s mind. His poor fifteen-year-old self couldn’t possibly fathom how having a penis up his ass would ever be enjoyable. Still, when Gerard touched him down there, there was a certain feeling in the pit of his stomach that rose up and took over him. Against all logic, this was what he wanted. He was ready.

            Gerard opened his mouth to protest, to ask Frank if he was ready, but Frank no longer wanted to talk. He was hungry, in a way that not only terrified him but also captivated him.

            “Fuck me, Gerard,” he whispered, rolling backwards so his arms gripped Gerard’s headboard and his knees were pulled up. It was like zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. He squeezed his eyes shut, relying on only his sense of touch to know where Gerard was. He moved much slower than Frank expected him to, taking his time kissing the insides of Frank’s thighs and knees while he stroked himself, his erection slowly returning. Gerard began moving faster and faster, however, cradling Frank’s head and kissing him deeply. He was completely on top of Frank, straddling his waist and completely pinning him to the bed. Gerard ran his hands the sides of Frank’s hips, then his ribs, and finally over his arms until he pinned him down by his wrists. Frank’s breath caught. Holding Frank down, Gerard kissed him lightly, just barely teasing his lips against the other boy’s, like the first time they had kissed. It felt entirely new and sent Frank into freefall. He surged up and kissed Gerard with as much passion as he had felt that afternoon, the feeling of never wanting to leave Gerard’s arms, the urge to touch someone that was so intense it made him hurt. He tried to bruise Gerard’s mouth with his own, surging up and wrapping his legs around him. They kissed for a while, raw and intense, until Gerard pulled back and murmured, “Hang on.”

            He wrapped one of his bed sheets around himself and hurried out of the room. Frank lay awkwardly, still feeling Gerard on his skin. He returned a minute later carrying a bottle and a package of condoms.

            “Mikey’s,” Gerard explained briefly and turned a slight shade of pink like he was still embarrassed by sex. He opened the bottle and slicked up a finger. Frank shut his eyes as Gerard ran the finger behind his balls and over his opening. Gerard kissed Frank while he pressed a finger in, deep and dirty kisses that he hoped were distracting enough from the discomfort. With his other hand, Gerard rubbed Frank’s neck and down his chest to his stomach. He moved his mouth to Frank’s neck as he inserted a second finger, twisting and bending his fingers inside of Frank. Sucking hard on the skin, Gerard’s fingers teased Frank’s own dick, rubbing both of theirs together. They both whimpered quietly, Gerard still into Frank’s warm neck. He pushed in another finger, stretching him even further.

            “Fuck me, Gerard,” Frank whispered again and it was the single hottest thing Gerard had ever heard. He fumbled for the package of condoms while Frank kissed his shoulder and reached a hand over to squeeze his ass playfully. Gerard dropped the condoms in shock and Frank giggled in earnest against his shoulder. He could barely think about anything other than what he was about to do.

            “Are… are you ready?” Gerard asked, lining himself up.

            “Yes, just _do it_ ,” Frank groaned, knuckles white against the headboard and legs wrapped around Gerard’s waist.

            Gerard pushed in as slow as he possibly could, gasping at the shock of warmth and tightness.

            “Ungh, you’re so tight Frankie. So fucking tight. God, you feel good,” he babbled, placing his fingers on Frank’s shoulders to steady himself. “I just, I just…” Gerard stilled. The feeling was so intense he felt like he could already come. He’d never been on top before, but he knew that he was going to do it the right way for Frank. “Are you okay?” he asked eventually. Frank was taking in deep, heavy breaths to calm himself.

            “Yeah, I’m good.” They paused for a moment, staring at each other from their position. “You can go,” he supplied and Gerard immediately pulled out just a little bit and thrust back in. “Oh,” Frank said quietly. “Yeah, _yeah_ you can go. Mmm, go!” Gerard kissed him quickly before bracing his hands on either side of Frank’s head. He couldn’t help but keep kissing and looking at Frank, in all the places where he was soft and warm, in all the expanses where he could trace his fingers and his tongue. Frank shivered at the look Gerard gave him, the I-need-you-now look, the eat-you-alive look. He kept thrusting in, short and a little erratic, each time Frankie getting a bit more daring and meeting his thrusts. Gerard lost track of time with their fingers winding around each other, lips occasionally crashing together with just a little too much tongue and teeth. Frank’s nails scraped against his back, and Gerard could almost imagine the dark red lines they caused.

            “Oh fuck, Frank,” Gerard cried, just a little too loud, and Frank shut him up with another full on kiss.

            “Harder, just a little more, yes _please_ ,” Frank managed against Gerard’s mouth. They had found a rhythm, crashing in and out of each other like waves against rocks and _oh fuck_ it felt so amazing. Gerard had no idea why people didn’t do this all the time. “Gerard, Gerard, please touch me, oh!” Frank moaned, jerking himself off with eyes shut and head leaned far back so his throat stuck out and glistened with sweat. Gerard’s hand joined his easily, and they both groaned and rocked together gracelessly. Frank remained silent aside from his heavy panting and occasional whimpers, but Gerard couldn’t keep his mouth shut as he cursed and sighed against Frank’s slick skin. All of a sudden, however, at the slight change of angle in Gerard’s hips, Frank spit out a groan of, “Right _there_.” Gerard paused for a moment, shocked by the deep note in his voice, but Frank incessantly pushed his hips against the other boy’s.

            “Do that again, right there,” Frank groaned. And Gerard did it, without even thinking. He rolled his hips in and around just to hear the obscene noises that Frank was making. “Gerard, I’m gonna, I’m gonna,” he stuttered and with that he spilled out between the two of them, all over their hands. Gerard swore and squeezed his eyes shut as he gave in and came too.

            He collapsed on top of Frank and as soon as he regained his breath, rolled over onto his side to look at Frank. They were together again. And Frank was his. All his. They grinned weakly at each other in the now dark room, Gerard only looking away to slide off the condom and sling it into the trashcan by the door.

            “How much more t– “

            “An hour,” Frank answered before Gerard was even finished with his question. Without much else to say, they nestled up against each other with Gerard’s head on Frank’s chest.

            It was Gerard who broke the silence a few minutes later. “I didn’t think I would ever… I mean. I didn’t know how I was ever going to get over you,” he sheepishly admitted.

            Frank sighed. “I tried to hard not to look at your or think about you.”

            “And?”

            “It didn’t work.” Gerard placed a small kiss on Frank’s chest.

            “Can I ask… what happened to you? That whole time? How did you end up in the bathtub that night?” Frank asked.

            And so Gerard tentatively told the story. He tried to gloss over the embarrassing and gross parts, but he thought that Frank understood anyways.

            “So… that is basically, like, the story. So you have to give Elena a really big hug the next time you see her.” It was his attempt at a joke to lighten the mood. Frank just stared at him, cradling Gerard’s face in his hands as the sweat dried on their skin. A lock of hair was stuck to the side of Gerard’s face. He looked absolutely perfect with his purple-tinged lips and self-conscious curl he had assumed as they lay on the bed with their arms wrapped around each other.

            “You did all that?” Frank asked in a whisper before his voice dropped on the last word in amazement. “I’m not even worth it.”

            Gerard drew him closer and pushed his forehead against Frank’s. “You made me brave, Frank. And you made me beautiful. And one day I’m gonna be okay for you.”

            “I just want to kiss your face everywhere and have lots of sex with you and touch noses and stare into your eyes and tell you whatever you want to hear but I think I’m too short to do all that at the same time. Like, standing up or whatever. God, that was embarrassing. Please erase that from your memory.” Frank composed himself. “So I want you. Maybe, like, need you. So, just… don’t leave.”

            “Okay.”

***  

Epilogue

            “I can’t believe you idiots actually did that,” Bob sighs. He’s bustling around the basement, handing the guys ice packs and wet washcloths. “You’re actually insane.”

            “We had it coming,” Ray giggled.

            “And we totally got in some hits of our own!” Frank added. “We fucking _mangled_ Nick’s nose.”

            It had happened the day after the sound system takeover. The four of them had been dramatically approached by Nick and Minions. All they had said was, “Friday. After school. Be ready.” So fuck it! They gathered up their croquet sticks and went at them. All of them were so elated that it didn’t matter if they won or lost. They all ended up at Gerard’s house, nursing their wounds. Ray sustained a pretty bad one to the head and Mikey’s nose had been bleeding profusely for a while now. Frank’s ribs were bruised pretty badly, so he obviously took over the bed while Gerard held his hand from the floor.

            It would be wrong to say that things were back to normal because they weren’t. Nothing can ever just go back to how they once were. There were moments when the both of them didn’t know what to say and other times when they had to relearn how to be close to one another. But things were better. Sometimes, all it took was a squeeze from Frank’s hand or a bad joke from Gerard to make things okay for a while.

            Mikey was outside the room at the moment. Ray had been complaining all afternoon that he was hogging the phone calling Alicia when he _promised_ Krista that he’d call her. Frank and Gerard weren’t the best outlet for sympathy so instead the lobbed pillows at him until he shut up. _Finally_ Mikey came back, only to offer a ride to people that were leaving. Frank walked them outside, hoping to find a way to embarrass his friends.

            When Frank returned, Gerard was sitting with his legs crossed and his back to the door. A thin stream of cigarette smoke was drifting upward above Gerard’s hunched back. Frank could picture exactly how the cigarette was hanging from Gerard’s bottom lip like it did when he was so immersed in his thoughts that he forgot about anything else. Frank knelt down, caringly wrapped his arms around Gerard’s chest, and rested his head on Gerard’s shoulder so his nose was pressed into his neck. He grabbed the cigarette out of Gerard’s mouth and exhaled a stream of smoke down Gerard’s neck and t-shirt. “Frank?” Gerard asked. Frank just buried his face into Gerard’s neck again, sweeping his long hair back to press kisses into his neck, collar, and jaw.

            “Shh. No talking. I am seducing you.” He pulled Gerard’s t-shirt off over his head then pushed the cigarette back into his boyfriend’s mouth. Gerard inhaled deeply while Frank’s hands roamed down his torso. Right before he reached Gerard’s hips, however, he stole the cigarette out of his mouth again and stubbed it out on the floor. Rolling the two of them on the floor, Frank managed to stay on top and undo Gerard’s belt buckle. He was already palming Gerard through his pants when he spoke again.

            “I’m going to miss you so fucking much next year.”

            “It’s not like… I’ll be gone forever.” Frank bent down to kiss his chest and collarbones. Gerard was getting hard already and his breath was hitching as he felt Frank flush up against him.

            “You’ll come see me?” Frank asked, playing it up. He made his very best pouty face and held Gerard’s hands at his sides. “Will you see me?” he asked again, grinding his hips down playfully.

            “Every… every weekend,” Gerard stuttered. He peeled the other boy’s shirt off, Frank wincing a little as it grazed his injuries.

            “Do they hurt?” Gerard asked, tracing his fingers over them.

            “It was worth it,” Frank replied, kissing him lightly. He thought a little about the first time he and Gerard had been alone together in the basement bathroom. It seemed lifetimes away, and now seemed infinitely better. They fumbled with their pants until they were fully naked and panting, Frank on all fours above Gerard. Gerard’s hair had grown out since the first time they had met each other and it was once again falling in his face clumsily. Looking at him then, Frank could barely contain his feelings for Gerard.

            “Fucking…” he sighed and they were at it again, crashing their lips together and entwining tongues.

            If Mikey had noticed the sudden disappearance of his lube, he didn’t say anything. Gerard kept it stashed under his bed, a territory where no one dared to go, and that was where Frank immediately reached. Gerard began stroking his growing erection while Frank lubed up a finger.

            “Wanna see a show? I’ll show you something worth missing,” he purred and arched his back as he inserted his first finger.

            “Holy shit, Frankie,” Gerard whispered while he watched in awe. It was astonishing how quick of a liking Frank had taken to sex and even more astonishing how quickly he caught on. Gerard was convinced that Frank was made for this, like it was something that had always been there in the way that he walked. Frank was circling his hips around his fingers, inserting a second one. Gerard was completely overcome with lust and passion.

            “Oh God, Frank, I need you. I’ll miss you all the time, oh, I’ll need you,” he moaned, fingers moving around his own cock.

            “I wanted to try something,” Frank said, reaching over for a condom. “Something new.” He rolled the condom down Gerard’s cock and lubed him up. “I want you so bad,” he groaned and Gerard was kissing him before he could stop himself. They got caught up in it, grabbing each other and nipping at each other’s throats before Frank pushed back again. “Hold still,” he whispered and began to lower himself onto Gerard’s dick.

            “Holy!” Gerard gasped. It was so different from fucking Frank. There was still the insane tightness encompassing him, driving him insane but there was also the feeling that he was clay in Frank’s hands. Frank was in control now.

            Frank lifted himself slightly then sunk back down onto Gerard. He experimented with moving his hips, moving them in circular motions and reaching down to place his hands on Gerard’s shoulders. He whimpered and bit his lip while Gerard panted below him.

            “Oh fuck, Frankie. You’re so beautiful,” Gerard said. He really was. His head was tipped back and his Adam’s apple stood out in the dim light. Sweat was glistening down his throat and to his collarbone. Frank bent down so his whole body was flush against Gerard. Gerard instinctively reached up and fit his fingers into the notches in Frank’s spine. As Frank leaned back again and slammed his hips into Gerard, he could feel the muscle and bones moving. It felt like the whole world was falling apart around them.

            “Just like this Gerard. I love you just like… this,” Frank sighed and with that Gerard felt himself coming inside Frank with muffled groans. Frank pulled himself off of the older boy’s cock and rolled onto his back, stroking his cock gracelessly. Gerard crawled over to him, blessed out in his post orgasmic state and kissed Frank heavily. Frank was whimpering around his tongue and biting at his lips. Soon after, he was spilling over his hands and sighing with relief.

            “God that was amazing,” Frank said.

            “And we still have all summer,” Gerard said.

            “All summer…”

            They sat in their bliss for a while, just on the floor and staring at the ceiling, thinking about nothing at all.

            “Hey, Gerard?” Frank asked. “You okay?”

            “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. You?”

            “Better thank okay.” 

 

THE END!


End file.
